


Inside This Twisted Labyrinth

by QuoteIntangible



Series: Labyrinth [1]
Category: Pierce the Veil, Sleeping With Sirens
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Loosely Based on Circles Music Video, M/M, Scenes of torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:22:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8769817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteIntangible/pseuds/QuoteIntangible
Summary: Loosely based on the Circles music video by PTV. The last text Vic got from Kellin said: 'At hotel. Call you in a few.' That was seven days ago. No one has heard anything from Kellin or the rest of Sleeping with Sirens since. With the police investigation gone cold, Vic takes matters into his own hands. He knows his boyfriend and the rest of SWS are somewhere in that hotel, and he is going to do whatever it takes to find them. Mike, Tony, and Jaime won't let him go alone, determined to save their friends, as well. But even with a secret set of blueprints, are the four of them really enough to save not only themselves from the hotel of horrors, but SWS, as well? And will Kellin and the guys survive long enough for PTV to find them?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I can't believe I haven't seen any other fics yet based off of the Circles video! If there are any, please, please send me a link so I can read it. :) 
> 
> Warnings: Torture, Violence, and Rape/Non-con. Most of the torture and rape/non-con scenes take place off screen, and obviously the torture and its after effects on the characters are mentioned, but not detailed. Except for one fairly graphic scene in later chapters. There is a fair bit of violence detailed, though.
> 
> Additional AN: While the story is mostly centered around Vic rescuing Kellin and their love story, this is a true ensemble fic, meaning everyone in PTV and SWS has a pretty big part in the story. Also, the scenes aren't necessarily in chronological order. For example, this chapter starts with Vic's point of view seven days after SWS went missing, but then it goes to a scene from Jack's point of view that takes place only four days after they went missing. It's totally fine, though, if you don't pay attention to the dates. You won't get confused.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not know any of the members of Pierce the Veil or Sleeping with Sirens, nor have I ever met any of them. The closest I have ever come is seeing SWS in concert not too long ago, and I wasn't even that close to the stage. None of this is real, it's all super made up, and I'm not making any money off of it.

**_Day 7_ **

His hands clenched into fists, muscles coiled tightly like a serpent ready to strike. "What do you mean it's not enough for a search warrant?" Vic nearly screamed at the police officer. The police officer held considerable height and girth on him, and could easily turn Vic to dust beneath his fist. But Vic had desperation on his side.

Seven days ago his life shattered around him. Seven days ago his boyfriend, Kellin, and his boyfriend's entire band vanished. Disappeared completely off the face of the Earth. Seven days ago he'd gotten his last text from Kellin.

_At hotel. Call you in a few. <3_

Vic waited three hours for a call that never came. He waited three hours before trying his boyfriend's phone, sending several texts asking why he hadn't called, and calling a few times with no response. He'd hoped his boyfriend had just fallen asleep accidentally. It had happened before... maybe. Once morning came, after a long, sleepless night, Vic blew up his boyfriend's phone, calling a dozen times. When that proved fruitless, he called everyone else in the band with no success.

Then the call came.

It was the Sleeping with Sirens tour manager asking if he'd spoken with Kellin recently. The boys never showed up for their interview in the morning. She traveled separately from them, like she normally did, and went to their hotel, the Holmes Hotel as it was called, only to find there was no sign they'd ever been there.

That was strange, considering Vic had a text saying his boyfriend arrived at the hotel.

His boyfriend's tour manager called the police. Vic caught the first plane out.

Vic had been there when the police questioned the hotel manager, hovering like the worried almost-spouse he was in the background. The manager was an older gentleman, on the wrong side of 40, with considerable pudge around his midriff. The left side of his face was disfigured, covered in long-healed burns that pulled the left side of his lips up into a permanent smirk, and shriveled up the skin around his glassy eye.

The manager claimed Sleeping with Sirens never showed. Even after being confronted with the text Vic had from Kellin stating they'd arrived, he stuck to his story, even going so far as to suggest Kellin had lied to cover up _'something else,'_ the hotel had manager said with a wink to the cop Vic was now arguing with. The police checked the hotel, found nothing, and crossed the manager off their list of suspects.

But Vic knew his boyfriend had been there. He wouldn't lie, not to Vic. So he turned online, searching for any information he could find on the hotel.

What he found disturbed him. His search led him to an online conspiracy forum. Yeah, it was full of conspiracists, but most of them were family members of people who had last been seen at or headed to the Holmes Hotel. None of their missing family members had ever been seen again.

Except one.

She was a young woman in her late 20s that had disappeared nearly 15 years ago, but her body had only been discovered accidentally by a hiker and his dog buried deep in the forest five years ago. Though only her bones remained, there was strong evidence she'd been tortured and raped for a significant amount of time before her death.

It made his stomach churn and roil like waves in the ocean.

What if that was happening to Kellin and the rest of SWS right this moment? What if he never got to see Kellin again? Never got to spend his life with him?

He was going to propose to him. 

And these cops were doing nothing, just sitting on their hands and twiddling their fucking thumbs, hoping for a lead that wouldn't come.

"We already checked out the hotel and found nothing. A bunch of news clippings and second hand accounts from family members is not enough evidence for a search warrant. I'm sorry, Mr. Fuentes. There's nothing we can do, but we'll keep –"

"This is bullshit!" Vic hissed, shrugging off the placating hand his younger brother, Mike, placed on his shoulder. Without waiting for a response, he pushed past his brother and the cop, storming out of the police station.

Tony and Jaime were both waiting outside, Tony sitting on the front steps, and Jaime leaning against the railing. Jaime perked up when he saw Vic, but deflated as soon as Vic shook his head no to his silent question. He felt his brother step up behind him, and he shot him a glare before he could say anything or place a hand on his arm again.

"I'm sorry –"

"I'm going after him," Vic interrupted Jaime.

"Say that again. You're what?" Jaime said, pulling an exaggerated face. Jaime had a flare for the dramatics, and Vic secretly thought he had undiagnosed ADHD.

"I'm going after him," Vic stated firmly.

"How exactly do you plan on doing that?" Jaime asked.

"I'm going to the hotel to look for him."

"Yeah, that sounds like a _great_ idea," Jaime sarcastically countered. "Just walk into the hotel your boyfriend and his _entire band_ went missing in, and sign in as a guest."

Vic crossed his arms across his chest and glared at Jaime. There was no talking him out of this. He was going after Kellin, and he was going to find him, and propose to him just like he planned to do when both their tours ended and they were home together once again. Kellin was at that hotel, he knew it. He just needed the proof now.

"Vic, you can't seriously –" Jaime said, but it was Mike who interrupted him.

"I'm coming with you. Sleeping with Sirens are my friends, too, and Kellin's like a brother to me. He _will_ be my brother once we find him," Mike said, elbowing him in the ribs. Normally, Vic would appreciate his brother attempting to infuse hope into this hopeless situation. But Vic could not be cheered. Not with Kellin missing. "I'm not letting you go after him alone," Mike quietly added. Vic did shoot him an appreciative smile for that.

Jaime and Tony glanced at each other for a moment, before Tony said, "We're in. But if we're doing this we need to be prepared. We need blueprints of the hotel, some sort of self-defense weapons, a basic plan, and emergency medical, water, and food supplies."

Jaime's mouth hung open, his eyes wide as he stared at Tony in disbelief. "When did you become an expert on rescuing people?"

"I grew up in a rough neighborhood," Tony said, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.

"That explains nothing," Jaime said.

Tony rolled his eyes and ignored him.

"I'm pretty sure I can get blueprints of the hotel," Vic said. After all the research everyone in his online group had done into the hotel, one of them was bound to have blueprints of the place.

"I'll get the weapons," Tony said.

"Jaime and I'll get everything else," Mike said.

"Good. Grab a couple backpacks while you're at it, and make sure everything you buy fits in them. We'll meet back at the hotel in two hours and come up with a plan," Tony said.

"It's scary how efficient you are at this. Any past kidnapping experiences you'd like to share?" Jaime said, eyeing Tony skeptically.

Vic tensed his shoulders at the word 'kidnapped.' He'd been avoiding thinking of it, but God, the love of his life really had been kidnapped, and was now potentially in the hands of a madman suffering who knows what kind of torture. Maybe even already dead ...

"Not now," he heard Tony hiss at Jaime, his eyes shooting towards Vic.

"Sorry. Wasn't thinking," Jaime mumbled.

Vic shrugged off his concern, and stalked away without waiting to hear more.

Once back at their hotel, he immediately contacted his online group.

_Anyone have blueprints of the hotel? I'm going after my boyfriend._

He paced the room nervously, updating his laptop every five minutes in hope of a reply. Finally, nearly an hour later a woman named Darla replied. If Vic remembered correctly, her brother had gone missing at the hotel nearly four years ago.

_My father tracked down the architect of the Holmes Hotel and bought these at his estate sale after he passed. Apparently, he was a horrible fellow, and his niece and nephew auctioned everything off as soon as they could. I don't know if the blueprints are accurate, my father passed away from cancer before he got a chance to check it out himself, but it shows an entire maze of rooms below the ground floor that doesn't show up on any public blueprints of the hotel. My father was a contractor, and he added his own notes to the blueprints._

_I hope this helps, and I sincerely hope you find your boyfriend._

_-Darla_

Vic rushed to the closest printing shop, and printed a full scale version of the blueprints before sprinting back to the hotel to meet the guys. Just to be on the safe side, he downloaded the blueprints to his cellphone just to have an extra copy.

"Here it is," Vic said. He dragged the desk from the corner to the center of the room. He spread the blueprints out across the desk as they all gathered around it. Vic couldn't make heads or tails of the blueprints. He was terrible at reading maps and abstract concepts like this, which is why no one ever let him navigate when they drove their own van around while touring before they got GPS. Darla's father had made quite a few notes to help, though.

There were several pages of blueprints, labelled first, second, and third floor, but it was the last one that caught their attention the most.

 **Secret** **Basement?** was handwritten across the top center of the page, to which Jaime muttered, "That's not creepy at all."

 **Possible** **Entrances/Exits** with arrows pointing at certain parts of the blueprints was the next thing that caught his eye, as well as the word **Trap?** that was also written several times with arrows pointing at things Vic couldn't make sense of. It all looked like just a bunch of straight lines to him.

There were several other notes, including **Main power supply-disable this first, Incinerator,** and **Dead End** in several places, but one particular note made his entire body go cold, his heart racing in his chest.

 **Everything** **leads** **here** , the note said, and it was circled and starred several times. It was written in the middle of what looked to Vic like six identical boxes, three on each side of a hallway, all with the dimensions of 6 feet by 8 feet.

"Oh God," he heard himself say, catching himself with both hands on the desk as his knees grew weak at the word printed under 'everything leads here' with six arrows around it pointing to each box.

**Prison cells.**

There was one room attached to the ... prison cells ... at the end of the short hallway. It was the second to last room on the bottom right corner of the blueprints. Vic had to force the contents of his stomach to stay down when he saw what was written in the room.

**All indicators suggest this is a medical facility**

Everyone looked up at him with the same shocked expression on their faces. Vic turned his back to them, and walked away a couple of paces. He took several deep breathes to calm himself. He needed to be a leader in this situation, he couldn't let the others see him fall apart.

"At least we know what we're getting into," Jaime sarcastically said, with a humorless chuckle.

"It's a maze," Tony said.

"A maze that leads to a fucking dungeon," Jaime said, causing Vic to flinch.

"This changes nothing," Vic said. "I'm still going after him."

"We know," Mike said, placing a hand on Vic's shoulder. He felt his shoulders relax under his brother's calming touch, and turned back around to face his band.

"We need a plan," Tony said.

"We have one," Jaime said, pointing to the blueprints where it said **Main power supply-disable this first.** "This is a symbol electricians often use for the main breaker. You can see lines running from this central point to each room. There's more than there should be running to all the places where someone put the 'trap' labels. What? My father's an electrician. I apprenticed with him one summer when I was 16," Jaime said in response to Tony's incredulous look. "You have your secrets, I have mine."

"I'm not a psychopath," Vic said, "So I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing we're meant to get lost, and confused, and terrified in this maze before ending up in these prison cells. These 'traps' could mean literally anything."

"Like blow darts coming out of the walls, or giant boulders falling from the ceiling," Jaime said. Vic, Mike, and Tony glared at him in response. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"We need to get to those cells," Mike said.

"With these blueprints, and if Jaime can disable the main power supply, we should be able to get through this maze quickly."

"And then?" Jaime asked. "We have no way of knowing what's waiting for us on the other end."

"I know," Vic said, hanging his head.

"That's why I got us these," Tony said. He snatched a black bag off the ground by his feet, and dumped the contents onto the desk.

"What are those?" Jaime asked.

"Pepper spray," Tony said with a shrug, handing each of them a small canister. "It'll spray up to 35 times over a distance of 12 feet. I also got us these," he said, hooking his duffle bag with his foot and dragging it closer. He pulled out a crowbar from the bag and waggled his eyebrows. "The store only had two, though."

"A crowbar, really? No gun?" Jaime asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Do any of us know how to shoot a gun?" Tony said, raising his eyebrow at Jaime.

"Point taken."

"Are we going to sign in as guests, or are we gonna do some b and e? If we sign in as guests and it is a trap, we'd be walking right into it," Tony said.

"It's the quickest way to get wherever this is, though," Vic said, gesturing to the blueprints. "We don't know for sure any other way to get in."

"So, we have no idea what we're getting into," Mike said.

"We have no idea how many assailants there are," Tony added. "Or what we're up against."

"And we have no idea if Kellin, Justin, Jack, Gabe, and Nick are even still alive," Jaime said.

"But we're going in after then anyways," Vic quietly said, meeting each of their eyes.

"Bring it on," Jaime said, gesturing for them to come closer, before he started clapping his hands. Vic shook his head, and backed away. "Come on, Vic, bring it in."

"Jaime, no," Vic said.

"Jaime, yes," he said, continuing to clap his hands, and nudging Mike and Tony who were on either side of him with his elbows until they both joined in. "Come on, Vic."

Vic rolled his eyes, but huddled close to his band and clapped with them.

"We're going to Mike first," Vic said, and Jaime cheered.

"Hey Mike," they all said together.

"Yuup."

"The Devil, the devil is everywhere. Hey Jaime."

"Whaaat."

"The Devil, the devil is everywhere. Hey Tony."

"Mh-hmm."

"The Devil, the devil is everywhere. Hey Vic."

"Uh-huh."

"The Devil, the Devil is everywhere. P-T-V!" they cheered together, each putting a hand in the center of the circle and raising it at the same time.

He put his arm around his brother and Tony's shoulders, and they did the same to Jaime, closing the circle, bringing them closer together for a moment.

A moment of silence and comfort before the raging storm.

"We leave in the morning. And guys," Vic said, squeezing his best friends closer. He didn't know what was going to happen tomorrow. He didn't know if they'd ever find this supposed secret basement. He didn't know if they'd even find Kellin and the rest of Sleeping with Sirens alive. He didn't even know if they would survive what was to come next. But his three best friends were willing to risk everything to help him anyways.

"Thank you."

*

**_Day 4_ **

Jack groaned as a steady _drip, drip, drip_ of water wormed its way into his subconscious and dragged him from his slumber. The last thing he remembered was ... Well, Jack doesn't know the last thing he remembered.

He remembered passing out in his hotel room, listening to Kellin bitch about the fact that there was no cell phone reception so he couldn't call Vic, only to wake up on a cold slab of concrete with the rest of the guys.

Jack had slowly come to, but he felt Justin jerk awake next to him and quickly scramble to his feet.

"What the _fuck?"_ Justin had hissed, voice tinged with panic. Jack heard various groans from the other members of his band as he dragged himself into a sitting position.

They had been in some sort of hallway, as far as any of them could tell in the dim lighting that constantly flickered and grated on their already worn thin nerves.

"Let's not panic," Nick had said in a calm voice.

"Not panic? Not panic!?!" Justin had said, definitely panicking. "We're in a dungeon, and does anyone even fucking know how we got here?"

"It's technically a hallway," Gabe had unhelpfully murmured.

"With no windows, no visible exits, and made entirely of concrete," Justin had pissily replied.

"And panicking is not going to help our situation," Nick had said, extending a hand to help Jack to his feet. "Let's take this one step at a time. First, what kind of supplies do we have? Everyone check your pockets."

"I have my cellphone and a sharpie, though I don't know if that's helpful," Kellin had said, pulling the items from the inner pocket of the black leather jacket he was wearing.

"I have my cellphone, too," Justin had said, a tiny bit calmer than he was a moment before.

"Don't look at me," Gabe had said. "I'm in my fucking pajamas. But there's a 12-pack of water bottles here."

"I have a pocket knife, but not much else that'll be useful," Nick had said. "The water is a good sign. It means our captor doesn't want us dead right away."

"That's not very comforting," Justin had mumbled, and though no one else said anything, they had all been thinking the same thing.

"I'm assuming neither of your cellphones have signals," Nick had said, ignoring Justin. "That would be too easy. Let's turn one off for now, and then turn the other one on when the first's batteries die. We'll keep looking for a signal."

They had tried not to panic as Nick led them down the hallway, but after only a short distance the hallway forked into two directions. They chose right, and it came to a dead end.

They hadn't been trapped in a dungeon. They had been in some sort of sick, demented maze, they realized.

With nothing except the clothes they'd fallen asleep in (or in some of their cases passed out in, because Kellin and Justin couldn't remember ever actually making the decision to go to sleep), whatever happened to be in their pockets when they fell asleep, and the water, they cautiously entered through the maze.

That was four days ago as far as Jack could tell.

With only using it to occasionally check for a signal, and turning off all the apps, Kellin's phone lasted almost 36 hours. Justin's cellphone had lasted slightly longer, two days, before the battery finally gave out. But that was hours, days, weeks ago? It was impossible to tell. It didn't feel like weeks, it felt like hours, but there was no sun down here, nothing but concrete floors, and concrete walls, and the ... Well, there was no other word for it, but booby traps, Jack guessed.

In one room they stumbled into, each of them ended up getting electrocuted. Obviously, not enough to kill them, but enough to hurt like a bitch. They'd managed to get through by having one person take one step at a time, and using the sharpie in Kellin's pocket to mark points on the floor that would electrocute you when touched it. In another, the floor gave out, and they fell onto a pile of garbage.

They tried to keep their spirits high, tried to believe each of Nick's pep talks about how they had a chance, and their captor obviously wanted them alive, but it was hard when they were literally being tortured, and they didn't know by whom, or what for. They'd had nothing to eat since before they'd gotten to the hotel, too, and their bodies had begun protesting because of it.

He supposed there probably wasn't a reason to all of this. Just some sick bastard getting his jollies watching them suffer.

They worked together, they got through each trap. Nick kept telling them there had to be an end. Every maze had an end, they would get to it eventually.

Well, they found it.

The end was a fucking prison.

"Guess not every maze has an end," Justin had humorlessly joked, before everything went black.

He woke up chained to the wall in one of the prison cells. He tugged at the chain holding his right wrist captive near his head. The clanking of metal against metal was the only thing he achieved from doing that. It looked like one of those chains straight out of a medieval horror film, with thick rusted metal that chaffed at the skin of his wrist.

He heard a groan from the other side of the room, and realized for the first time he was not alone in his cell.

"Oh, thank God," he murmured, his heart pounding with relief. Knowing someone else was in the room with him slightly calmed his terrified nerves. "Nick," Jack said, stretching out his leg to kick the other guitarist. Nick jerked awake, and quickly came to the same realizations Jack just had: that they were chained to a wall in a tiny prison cell with nothing but a bucket, a leaky faucet neither could reach, and a solid, metal door with a hole cut out of it near the top. Even if they could manage to break free from their bonds, there was no way either of them would fit through that hole to escape. Maybe Kellin or Justin could, though. Maybe.

"Fuck," Nick hissed. It was the most shaken Jack had seen the other man since this whole ordeal started. They were all terrified for their lives, but Nick held them together, got them through the maze of horrors, kept his calm no matter what happened.

Only to end up like this.

Everyone had their breaking point. Maybe this was Nick's. 

"You guys finally awake," Gabe snarked, his voice travelling through the window to their prison cell.

"Yup, we're awake," Jack bitterly said.

"Good. We were starting to think you were dead," Justin yelled back.

"We are. We came back just to haunt your sorry ass," Nick said, mirthlessly laughing at his own lame joke. It calmed Jack slightly seeing Nick shake off his previous horror. If Nick was okay, he was okay. Right?

"Any ideas on how to get the fuck out of here?" Gabe yelled back to them.

"Working on it," Nick answered, but Jack was close enough to see the dread on his face. Nick didn't have a fucking clue on how to get out of this one. "Is everyone okay?"

"Relatively," Gabe answered. 

"My hand is starting to go fucking numb already, but I'm not dying," Justin said. "What about you guys?"

"We're fine," Jack answered for the both of them. He noticed, however, that something very important was missing in their conversation.

"Kelliiiin!"Jack exaggeratedly yelled. Kellin had been exceptionally quiet since this whole ordeal began, they all had, but he could at least let them know he was still alive. Jeez. "Quit being a bitch and say something," Jack said, trying to infuse some sort of normalcy into this terrifying situation. Him and Nick were always picking on Kellin, and he needed that right now to keep himself from freaking the fuck out. He expected Kellin to snark back at him, or to at least say he was fine. 

But there was nothing, no response, just the faint drip of water from the faucet in the corner of his and Nick's cell.

"Kelliiiin. Come out, come out wherever you are."

Still, nothing but silence greeted him.

"Dude, is Kellin in the cell with you guys?" Jack asked Gabe and Justin.

"No. We thought he was with you," Justin replied, his voice wavering slightly.

"Kellin?" Jack bellowed. "Kellin?" He shared a nervous glance with Nick when no voice replied.

A moment later, the first scream pierced the silence.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Day 8_ **

Vic hid in the shadows of the buttress on the brick wall surrounding an otherwise seemingly bland Holmes Hotel. On the outside it was nothing more than a plain white three-story building with overgrown hedges lining a rundown cobblestone pathway to double glass doors. The lounge, from what he remembered of the police investigation, was nothing he hadn’t seen in a million hotels already:  a reception desk that lined one wall, a few bulk-style metal chairs, an ugly maroon area rug over concrete floors. Plain, simple, boring.

But even the most plain of objects could hold the darkest of secrets.  ~~~~

Not wanting to make the hotel manager suspicious, Vic waited outside as Mike, Jaime, and Tony signed in to the hotel. As he waited for the all clear from them, he sent one last message to his boyfriend’s tour manager who, at Vic’s request, was staying in town for a few more days.

_Mike, Tony, Jaime, and I are going after Kellin and the rest of the guys. If you don’t hear from me again after this, please file a missing person’s police report as soon as they let you, and tell them we were last seen checking in at the Holmes Hotel._

_-Vic_

He snapped a picture of the hotel with the date and time stamped over it and attached it to the email, as well as a copy of the blueprints.

He just hit send on the email when Mike called and gave him the all clear to sneak in the hotel.

“Seriously, bro?” Mike laughed as his brother leaned out the window, extending out his hand.

“I didn’t think the windows would be so high off the ground,” Vic grunted as he jumped up and grasped his brother’s hand. Tony squeezed in the window next to Mike and grabbed his other hand as Vic used his feet to propel himself up the side of the building.

“Maybe if you weren’t so short, _lil_ bro,” Mike teased, as he and Tony yanked Vic through the window.

“It’s not my fault you’re freakishly tall. Seriously, it’s unnatural. Everyone in the family is short, but you,” Vic grunted as his feet hit the window sill and he propelled himself into the building, collapsing in a heap on top of his brother.

“I don’t see why you just couldn’t use the front door, like a normal person,” Jaime said, swiveling in the desk chair, eating an apple.

“Because the hotel manager saw me when the police investigated Kellin’s disappearance,” Vic said, rolling off his brother, who playfully shoved him, and climbing to his feet. “If he is the kidnapper, it would be suspicious if I checked into the hotel. He might just kill us outright, or choose not to kidnap us to throw suspicion off of him.”

“Ah yes, I forgot. We want the creepy psycho killer to go after us,” Jaime said, finishing his apple with a _crunch_ , and tossing it into the trash.

Vic froze when at the word killer. _Kellin’s not dead,_ he told himself over and over. That woman, the one found in the woods who went missing at this hotel, she had been tortured for months before her death. Kellin and the others had only been gone for eight days.

Still, a lot can happen in eight very long days, and the thought of Kellin being … tortured … was only slightly better than him being dead.

He locked his knees against the sudden weakness he felt, clutching at the straps of his messenger bag.

“Jaime, put a sock in it,” Tony hissed, punching Jaime in the arm.

“We are –”

“Shut up!” Vic said. “I know this is crazy. I know this is a stupid idea. But we don’t have a better plan than this. You still have time to back out. I will completely understand if you walk out that door right now. But idiotic or not, I’m staying.” 

Silence stretched worn and thin across them as Vic tensed and waited for someone to break it, waited for the click of a door.

“Of course we’re staying,” Jaime said, with a hint of exasperation. “I just don’t like the anticipation. You know I don’t like anticipation. It could literally kill us,” he said, chuckling weakly at his own joke.

“No one likes this kind of anticipation, Hime-Time,” Vic quietly said, offering him a small smile.

“There is one thing we could do,” Tony said, gingerly sitting on the edge of one of the questionably clean beds. “You got the blueprints?”

“Right here,” Vic said, pulling them out of the messenger bag he had on and laying them down on the bed next to Tony.

“While we wait, we could check out these possible exits/entrances listed on the blueprints. See if we can’t find our own way in,” Tony said.

“Or we could just threaten the hotel manager and hold him hostage until he releases our friends,” Jaime mumbled.

“We don’t know for sure the hotel manager is our bad guy,” Mike mumbled, absentmindedly rubbing his chin as his eyes raked over the blueprints.

“If he’s not, we’d be risking Kellin and the other’s lives,” Vic added.

“Just an idea,” Jaime said, throwing his hands up in a sign of surrender.

“If we go looking for these possible entrances, I don’t think we should split up,” Mike said.

“I agree,” Vic said. _It’s too dangerous,_ he almost added. They were so far in the land of danger as this point it probably didn’t even matter what they did.

“Does anybody know how to read blueprints, though,” Mike said with a huff. “There’s no ‘you are here’ on this thing.”

“It’s not a mall map,” Jaime said, rolling his eyes, and pushing Mike aside so he could get a better look at the papers spread out across the bed. “This is the entrance we came in,” he said pointing at what looked like just a bunch of lines to Vic. “The manager took us down this hallway here, and we’re the second room down on the left so we’re here.” 

“There’s three possible entrances,” Tony said, spinning the blueprint for the first floor around and pulling it closer. “I say we start at the one farthest away from our room, and work our way back.”

“Sounds good,” Mike said, rubbing his palms together. “One of you will have to lead the way, though,” Mike said, pointing to Tony and Jaime. “Vic and I are not any good at reading maps.”

Everyone looked up at Jaime at the same moment.

“Jesus, you guys are useless,” Jaime said, snatching the blueprints off the bed. Vic carefully folded up the blueprint for the potential secret basement and shoved it to the bottom of his bag. “Useless, I tell you. Follow me, mi amigos. Single file everyone. Keep your hands and feet inside the Jaime Train at all times. Let’s all hold hands, now. No stragglers.”

Vic laughed quietly and shook his head at Jaime’s antics. It was good to see that despite their situation, Jaime could still be Jaime. It was what they all needed to not go crazy at the moment.

He took in the sights as Jaime led them down various hallways to the opposite side of the hotel. Much like the outside, there was nothing spectacular about the inside. The paint chipped off the muted beige walls in a few places, the maroon carpets held a fairly standard geometrical pattern in black that could be found in a 100 hotels. There were no fingernail scrapings along the wall, or bloody hand prints. No cracks in the wall, or secret doors under the carpets that he could see. It disheartened Vic to see something so boring, and yet set his nerves on edge at the same time. What about the hotel _did_ make it different? What made it a hotspot of disappearance? What waited for them ahead?

“We’re here,” Jaime said.

“You sure?” Tony asked, raising his eyebrow at Jaime.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Jaime said. “I’m sure.”

“There’s nothing here,” Mike said. “It’s just the end of the hallway.”

Vic felt his heart sink. He knew the chances of finding anything were slim. The police had already inspected the hotel, after all, and found nothing. But still he had hoped for something more than a dead end.  Nothing looked out of the ordinary. They even checked both rooms on either side of the hallway and found nothing peculiar, no random cold spots, or hollow sounds where there should be solid wood, or strange drafts.  It was a little weird there was a window at the end of the hallway, but nothing that screamed ‘hey, I’m a secret entrance to a demented maze!’

“Maybe whoever marked this map meant the entrance was on the outside,” Tony said with a shrug, eyes scanning over the blueprints for the first floor. “Can I see the ones for the basement? Maybe there’s something there.”

 “We could always throw Vic out the window again,” Jaime suggested with a short bark of laughter.

Vic rolled his eyes at Jaime as he dug out the requested basement blueprints and handed them over. “There’s got to be something we’re missing, something the man who marked these blueprints noticed but we can’t see,” Vic said, running his hands along the wall around the window.

“You sure they weren’t just crazy?” Jaime asked. “Where did you get these anyways?”

“From the sister of someone who went missing here. Her father is a contractor. He’s the one that made the notes.”

Jaime’s face screamed ‘oh really.’ “Just curious, but where did they get them from?”

“According to her? From the estate sale of the architect who built this place.”

“And you sure she’s not crazy?” Jaime asked.

“I can’t say for certain that she’s not, but I don’t think she is. She has no reason to lie to me.”

“That’s fantastic,” Jaime sarcastically said, taking the blueprints out of Tony’s hands.

“Jaime –”

“I know, I know. I can still leave if I want to, but apparently I don’t because I’m crazy. And so far the first floor blueprints appear to be correct. I’m kind of hoping the ones for the basement aren’t, but either way we’re going to find out soon, right?” he said with a nervous chuckle. 

The second potential entrance proved equally fruitless, and though they searched the area thoroughly they found nothing.

The third was slightly more interesting.

“The third possible entrance is supposedly behind that reception desk,” Jaime whispered, as the four of them hid just out of sight of the hotel manager.  With the manager sitting firmly on his plump ass behind the counter, they couldn’t check it out without raising suspicion.

“We’ll come back later,” Tony whispered to Vic, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt to get Vic to follow them back to their room. Vic was reluctant to leave, though. Every minute they wasted was a minute something horrible could be happening to his boyfriend.

“Yeah,” Vic distractedly said, staring at the fat old man from around the corner.

“Come on, Vic,” Mike urged.

“Yeah, coming,” he sighed in defeat, and finally turned to slowly follow his band back to the room, vowing to come back later.

But then he heard the squeak of a chair, and the heavy shuffle of feet against carpet moving in the opposite direction as him. With his back pressed against the wall, he peeked around the corner to find the reception desk empty. He turned to tell the guys, but they had already disappeared around the corner.

It was a horrifically stupid idea, but Vic crept forward on his toes, no more than a whisper of sound, and slid behind the desk. He didn’t know how long the manager would be gone, and didn’t want to risk going back to get the guys and missing his chance.

There was something off about the entire lounge area, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It had been bothering him since he first saw this room during the police investigation. Everything looked completely normal, but he couldn’t shake the feeling in his gut that _something_ just wasn’t right.

The floor behind the desk consisted of solid concrete. No ornamental carpet back here to hide it. When he dropped to his knees to check under the desk, the floor felt quite chilly, almost like kneeling in snow, but that wasn’t necessarily uncommon for concrete. Nothing hid under the desk. No secret buttons or levers or trap doors.

It was when he stood to his feet, and ran his hands along the wood paneling on the wall behind the desk that he felt it. Each panel was maybe six feet in length and extended from floor to ceiling, split horizontally by 12 stripes. But one particular panel directly behind the hotel manager’s swivel chair recessed farther into the wall than the others. The crack between the panels on either side was wider than the distance between the other panels, as well. He shoved his body against the panel and heaved with his shoulder. It didn’t move in, but ever so slightly it shifted to the left. He pressed  his palms flat against the panel and tried pushing it open, trying both directions. It shifted slightly, but remained stubbornly in place.

There must be some sort of button somewhere, or a lever, or something that opened the panel. Maybe they could use the crowbars they brought to pry it open.  Before he could investigate, he heard the shuffle of feet against carpet and the whistle of the hotel manager. Vic quickly leapt over the desk and sprinted from the room, dashing around the corner just as the hotel manager bounded into the room. He hastily thrust the blueprints into his messenger bag, eager to tell the guys what he found.

Just as he reached the door, hand poised over the handle, he heard the shatter of glass and the thud of something heavy hitting the ground. The blood pounded in his ears, palms sweaty as he twisted the knob.

He spotted his brother first, lying on his back next to the bed, limbs askew, shattered glass showered around him. Jaime and Tony were both unconscious as well, lying on their sides on the floor. He rushed to his brother’s side, relieved when he found him still breathing, heart beat steady and strong, and no apparent wounds on his body.

His eyes scanned the room for a cause. There was a faint odor that hadn’t been there before, and a slight haziness hanging in the air.

But that was as far as he got before pain exploded in the back of his skull, and everything faded to black.

*

**_Day 6_**

Kellin knew he had been exceptionally quiet while they suffered through the maze of horrors, but he didn’t want to be the one to shatter the fragile hope that Nick had managed to muster in his band. Nick kept saying things like there had to be an end to the maze, and they could work together to find it, and while some of the guys may have believed it, or at least let a small flicker of hope burn inside of them, Kellin knew it was bullshit.  They would just get to the end and what, the psychopath who locked them down here would give them a big _congratulations_ for surviving and let them go?

Unlikely.

He knew there was something waiting for them at the end. Whether it was another trap, one they could not escape, or straight up murder, Kellin knew something horrible awaited them.

He just didn’t expect to pass out and wake up chained to the ceiling. 

From what he could tell when he first woke up, it almost looked like his captor trapped him in a hospital room. There was a sink and counter, a large medical cabinet, and a standard hospital bed lined along one wall. Along the next wall stood what looked like a metal autopsy table on wheels. The room even had the same awful fluorescent lighting as a typical hospital. However, on the opposite wall from the bed several thick chains were attached to the concrete wall. That was not so typical of a hospital.

Neither was being chained to ceiling, pulled so taut his feet barely touched the ground.

After first, Kellin thought it was just another trap, that their captor had separated them just to fuck with them (because he refused to believe the rest of his band might be dead). He thought, at first, like all the other traps they had stumbled upon there would be an escape, something subtle and stupid. Like he’d find the key to his handcuffs behind one of the concrete slabs of this room, or somewhere above his head, or maybe one of the others had the key, and would find a way out first, and gather up the others. He held on to that idea …

Until his captor walked in for the first time.

While trapped in the maze, Kellin hadn’t put much thought into _who_ had trapped them down here. It hadn’t been the most pressing issue at hand.

But when he recognized the creepy hotel manager he couldn’t say he was surprised. There had definitely been something off about him, but when they first signed in, he hadn’t paid too much attention to him. He’d been too busy trying to find a signal to call Vic.

Vic. The thought of his boyfriend made his stomach clench uncomfortably. What if he never got to see Vic again? What if he died here, and Vic never found out what happened to him?

God … He could really die here, couldn’t he? He probably _was_ going to die here.

Wasn’t he?

His family knew he loved them. Vic knew he loved him. Kellin had no regrets. He just hoped his death would not destroy Vic. He hoped one day Vic could move on, even if they never found his body.

Kellin eyed his captor warily as the man crossed the room. Aside from the burn on his face, there was nothing seemingly spectacular about him.

But all serial killers looked human on the outside. 

His instincts screamed at him to curl into a ball as the man approached, but the chains held his body taut. He tried to defiantly stare him down instead, but his heart thundered wildly in his chest, hands trembling and griping the chain tightly. As soon as the man stopped next to him, his eyes immediately averted towards the floor.

This was usually the part of the movie where the main character asked ‘what do you want’ or ‘why are you doing this?’

Kellin remained silent. There was no point in asking. He knew there was no answer other than simply ‘ _because I could.’_

A hand grasped his chin. He jerked his head away, but the hand tightened its grip, forcing him to look up at the cruel smirk of their captor. 

Still, he did not understand what his captor wanted.

Not until the man walked over to the door and grabbed a thick leather whip off a part of the wall his mind probably missed on first glance on purpose, a part of the wall full of various whips, and chains, and lead pipes, and other items that sent a shiver down his spine.

Then he knew. They were simply meant to suffer until they died, and nothing more.

He tried to hold back his screams when the first lashes fell, didn’t want to give his torturer the satisfaction. But when his skin was torn open for the first time, he couldn’t hold it back any longer.

Kellin doesn’t know how long ago that was. Hours? Days?

He worried about the others, prayed they were not dead, until he heard someone else crying out. Justin, he thought, it might have been. Then a long period of silence, followed by more cries of pain. He thought the second time might have been Jack. He felt both horrified they were experiencing the same pain as him, and relieved they were still alive. He tried to hold back his tears as he listened to that monster torture his friends. They didn’t deserve this.

Then his captor came back for him. Beat him with the same whip as before. He considered himself lucky it had only broken through the skin a couple of times.

He expected their captor to leave him chained to the ceiling, exactly as before.

But this time he stayed.

This time his captor uncuffed his wrists. His arms and legs, numb from being held in the same position for too long, immediately gave out on him and he crashed to his knees. Before he could even think of resisting, a hand fisted in his hair. Still, he fought as the hand in his hair hauled him to his feet and dragged him towards the bed. The hotel manager wasn’t much taller than him, but he was considerably wider and stronger. Maybe if he could just get to the wall of weapons, though, he might stand a chance of taking him out.

Kellin knew nothing about fighting. He’d been beaten up a couple of times by bullies in high school. That was the extent of his experience, though, and he hadn’t thrown any punches himself.

Everyone had the same weak points, he thought he remembered learning once. The nose and crotch were one, and he thought maybe the toes, though he couldn’t remember the others. He just needed to give himself enough time to make a break for the door.

So he drove his heel into his captor’s foot, and threw his head back into his attacker’s face. The hand in his hair loosened enough that he could pull himself free of the tight grip.

But his freedom was short lived.  Something cracked against the back of his head. His vision whited out, and he crashed to his knees again.  This time a hand wrapped around his neck, squeezing tight enough to cut off his oxygen as a gun pressed to his temple.

“You’re going to regret that,” the man hissed into his ear, pulling him to his feet once more by the hand around his neck.

The hand squeezed tighter as the man pulled him towards the bed. Kellin dug his heels into the ground, and sunk his fingernails into the arm restricting his oxygen, but his captor didn’t even flinch.

Instead he laughed, a cruel guttural sound that assaulted his ears.

“There is one perk to your father setting half of your body on fire. I can’t feel pain in the left side of my body,” the man hissed into his ear, shoving him face first into the mattress. "But you would know all about shitty fathers, wouldn’t you?” 

His lungs burned, and darkness crept around the edges of his vision when the pressure finally released from his neck. He dragged in a lung full of hair, panting heavily, but the respite was but for a moment.

He heard a click, and felt cold metal snap around his wrists once more. He tugged on the metal chain frantically, but it was too late. His captor had chained him to the railing of the bed.

“No,” he begged, the words torn from his lips as the man climbed on top of him. He shuddered in revulsion as he felt the man’s wrinkled hands slide under his shirt and up his sides, the burns on his left hand catching on his skin.

“Don’t,” he cried, knowing exactly what his captor wanted. He knew it was useless to protest, but he tried to buck the much larger man off of him anyways.

The man sat on the back of his thighs, one hand pressing his shoulder into the bed, and the other rubbing along the top of his jeans.

“It’s been a long time since I had a girl down here,” the man said in a slight southern accent. “Nobody wants to willingly fuck a face like this, you know? And the whores in this area are no fun," his captor said, sliding the hand not holding him down under his hips, fiddling with the button on his jeans until it popped off. He slid the zipper down, and shoved his hands under Kellin’s underwear, sliding his hands until he was cupping his bare ass. “Got this scar from good ‘ol, Dad. Took a match to my face after pouring gasoline on me,” he said, as Kellin tugged uselessly on the cuffs holding his hands captive to the bed’s railing. He squeezed his eyes shut, and forced the nausea down when the guy pinched his ass.

“But you’re awful pretty for a boy now, aren’t you?”  

“Please don’t,” he said, gagging as his jeans were yanked down.

His captor laughed, a sick sound that attacked his ears like the bass in a car radio turned up too loud. “It’s funny you think you still have a chance,” the man said, pressing his body firmly against his. “You’re mine now. You’re mine until I decide it’s time for you to die.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I was a little creatively blocked. I plotted out each of the two story lines separately, and I'm still trying to figure out how I want to piece the two separate story lines together. I think with this chapter, subconsciously I realized the first part of this chapter was missing something, which was why I was having a hard time moving on to the second part. But I think I fixed it ... maybe.

**_Day 8_ **

“Wakey, wakey,” Jaime’s voice pierced the fog encompassing his brain.

“What the fuck?” Vic groaned, trying to wrap his brain around the situation. His head throbbed mercilessly, and he appeared to be lying on a cold slab of concrete, the left side of his face sticky and wet.

 “You’re plan worked, bud,” Jaime said, sounding far too cheerful and sarcastic all at the same time. “We have officially been kidnapped.”

“Why are you so awake?” Vic groaned, slapping Jaime’s hand away that had been jabbing him repeatedly in the ribs.

“We weren’t bashed over the head like you were,” Mike said, kneeling down next to him. He grabbed Vic by the chin, and maneuvered his head to the side to get a better look at the wound on Vic’s head. “I think the bleeding stopped. Follow my finger,” Mike said, slowly moving his pointer finger back and forth in front of Vic’s eyes. He only complied to appease his brother’s worry. “I don’t think you have a concussion,” Mike said, but his lips were pulled down into a frown.  

“I’m fine, Mike,” he said, with a reassuring smile, and took his brother’s hand, letting Mike pull him to his unsteady feet. “If you guys weren’t hit over the head, what happened? I saw all of you on the floor passed out.”

“We didn’t eat or drink anything suspicious,” Mike said.

“Poison blow darts?” Jaime suggested, leaning his weight against the concrete wall of their new prison.

“There are two things wrong with that theory,” Tony said. He was still sitting on the floor, twirling a flashlight in his hands. “One, this isn’t a movie. And two, I think we would have noticed something like that.”

“Well if you’re so smart, what do you t think it was?” Jaime asked.

“I think it was some sort of gas,” Tony said.

“It’s possible,” Mike said.

“At this point, does it really matter?” Jaime asked with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Every little detail matters when you’re fighting for your life,” Tony said.

Vic froze. _Fighting for your life,_ echoed in his brain repeatedly. The sheer enormity of their situation sunk its claws in deep, and Vic staggered under its weight. Mike shot him a curious look when he stumbled, but he shook away the concern. He put everyone's lives at risk, all their loved ones above this prison, all their fans, would be devastated if they never returned. This is what he wanted, though, and they had to have hope they could fight through this successfully. Vic _needed_ to lead everyone out of here alive, _everyone._  

“Why were you bashed over the head and we weren’t?” Jaime asked, folding his arms across his chest and giving Vic a skeptical look.

“I wasn’t in the room when you guys were knocked out. I came back and found you all lying on the floor. I went to go check on you, and that’s when something hit me over the head,” Vic said, gingerly touching the lump that formed near his temple. He winced as his hand rubbed over the tender area, but he didn’t feel any fresh blood, just sticky, dried blood. They must have been out for a while. 

“Did you see who hit you?” Tony asked.

Vic shook his head no, and then regretted it the minute pain exploded behind his eyes.

“Why weren’t you in the room?” Mike said in a low voice, clearly pissed at Vic.

“I saw the manager leave, so I checked out the third possible exit,” he said, trying not to shuffle his feet like a little kid under the weight of his brother’s glare.

“By yourself?” Mike darkly asked.

“You guys were already out of sight and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity,” Vic said with a shrug.

Mike tensed, fisting his hands. “You could have been killed –” he said, but Tony cut him off with a hand on his chest, calming him.

“What did you find?” Tony asked.

“I’m pretty sure I found the exit to this place. There was a secret panel behind the reception desk,” Vic explained.

“That could prove useful,” Tony mumbled, twirling the flashlight in his hand absentmindedly. “Before we try and find this exit, though, we should check to see what kind of supplies we ended up with,” Tony said, prying open his backpack, the zipper echoing in the unnaturally quiet room. “What do you have, Mike?”

“Just what’s in my pockets,” Mike said, as Vic opened the messenger bag still hanging over his shoulder and rummaged through it. “And that would be just my cellphone, some loose change, and … no, that’s it.”

“I’ve got my cellphone, too,” Jaime said, holding up the phone as he waggled his eyebrows. “But that rat bastard stole my wallet. Oh, wait no. Here it is. Is that helpful?”

Tony rolled his eyes at Jaime, as he rummaged through the backpack he’d been wearing. “It looks like we managed to make it down here with at least one of the emergency bags we brought, and it doesn’t look like anyone went through it. I’ve got the crowbar, the pepper spray, a med kit, a flashlight, and some protein bars.”

“Please tell me you still have the blueprints, Vic?” Jaime asked.

“Whoever locked us down here took the ones for the upper floors,” Vic said, shuddering at the fact that not only had someone touched him while he was unconscious, they’d gone through his stuff. It appeared as though they’d only checked the main part of his bag, though, for when he zipped open one of the side pockets, he found the blueprints for the basement where he’d shoved them early in his haste to escape the hotel manager. “But it looks like I still have the one for the basement.”

“That’s good. We have at least one of everything we wanted to come down here with,” Mike, ever the optimist, said. “There’s water, too, on the floor over there.”

“Our kidnapper provided us with water?” Jaime skeptically asked, plucking one of the bottles off the floor and inspecting the lid for tampering. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It means whoever kidnapped us doesn’t want us to die right away,” Tony quietly admitted.

“He wants to watch us suffer first,” Vic added in the same soft tone.

“Creepy, but expected,” Jaime said, brushing off the sinister intentions of their kidnapper just like that. Vic knew the implications bothered Jaime just as much as it did him, but Jaime was very good at masking his emotions with humor. 

“We should turn our cellphones off,” Tony said, thumbing off his iPhone. Mike, Vic, and Jaime followed suite. They all had the same model, because their record label had given it to each of them as a gift when they released _Misadventures_. “Save the batteries for when we need them. We can always turn them on and look for a signal periodically.”

“Jaime, can you tell us where we are on this thing?” Vic asked, as Tony helped him spread the blueprint out and shone the flashlight on it.

Jaime glanced at it briefly, and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re kidding right?” he asked. Jaime threw his hands up when everyone continued to look up at him expectantly. “No, I can’t tell you where we are! I need a reference point.”

“How do we do that?” Vic asked.

“We walk around and build an internal map, and then see where it matches on this one,” Jaime said gesturing to the paper spread along the ground.

“How long will that take?”

“Depends on how long this hallway is, and where the first turn is, and how many turns it takes to draw a unique enough picture in our heads to match to the blueprints,” Jaime said, plucking the blueprints off the ground, and holding them in front his nose. “We could figure it out at the very first turn, or it could take a while.”

“Let’s hope we get lucky on the first turn,” Mike said, forcefully cheerful. “The faster we find the guys and get out of here, the better.”

“There is one thing I’m pretty sure of, though,” Jaime said, bringing the blueprints closer to his face to inspect in the dim lighting.

Tony rolled his eyes. Pushing the blueprints away from Jaime’s nose, he illuminated the paper for him with the flashlight.

“Ah, that’s better,” Jaime said. “I’m pretty sure this room right here is underneath where Vic found the exit.” He pointed to the very last room on the bottom right corner of the map, just after where the prison cells and medical facility room were identified.

“If that’s the exit, I doubt he’d place us anywhere near it,” Tony mused. “Even if we’re not supposed to know it’s an exit.”

“Well, we better get started then,” Mike said. He threw an arm around Vic’s shoulders, and together they took the first step into their new Hell.

*

**_Day 7_ **

He came for Justin first.

Shot him with a sedative, not enough to knock him out, but enough to make him loopy, before placing a rope around his neck. He dragged him from the room by the rope.

Gabe watched helpless, tethered to the wall, wide awake, but unable to stop the man from dragging his friend to face whatever fate had befallen Kellin.

Then the screaming came; closer than Kellin’s, loud enough to hear every hitch in breath, every sob, every plea.

Gabe pounded the back of his head against the concrete wall, squeezed his eyes shut, his breaths coming quick and fast as Justin screamed.

Their kidnapper dragged a shivering, shaking Justin back to the cell by the same rope, but at least on his own two feet, shoved him to his knees, and told him to lock his own wrist back up, or he’d shoot Gabe with the pistol held precariously in his hands.

Justin placed his wrist in the cuff, and snapped the metal closed around it.

In the dim lighting, Gabe could see his left hand was a bloodied mess, every single one of the fingernails on that hand missing. Completely gone. Nothing but skin and tissue and blood left.

“Is anything broken?” Gabe quietly asked.

Justin shook his head no, fresh tears tracing the trails of those before on his face.

“Did you see Kellin?” he asked, after the tears dried, and Justin managed to return his breathing to somewhat normal. He had his hand curled against his chest, protecting it as best he could.

Justin shook his head no again, and they lapsed into a long silence. Justin seemed too shaken to speak, and nothing Gabe said could make it better.

When the food and water first came, pushed  into a cell on a metal tray, Gabe refused to touch it at first. Better to die of thirst in three days, then wait to be tortured to death.

But Nick begged them to eat it. They would need their strength when the opportunity arose to escape. Gabe wasn’t nearly as optimistic as Nick appeared to sound, but gave in and ate the small meal, not ready to let his friends watch him die just yet.

Not ready to give up hope ... yet.

Surprisingly, nothing in the food tried to kill them (that they know of) or knock them out.

He came for Jack next.

This time Gabe did not have to watch, but he could hear.

He could hear Nick cussing the bastard out, calling him every swear word he could think of. He heard the bastard yelp in surprise, before uttering a string of curses, and then a groan of pain from a sedated Jack.

Apparently, Nick told him later, Nick tripped their kidnapper, who turned around and punished Jack for it by kicking him in the balls. He could hear it in the shake of Nick’s voice as he told him: the worry, the uncertainty. Paying for your own mistakes was one thing. Watching someone else pay for your mistakes was an entirely different sinister game.

It was not a game any of them wanted to play.

They could hear the sounds of something heavy hitting flesh, the grunts of exertion from their captor. But no pleading, no begging. Nothing, but silence from Jack.

“Not going to beg?” Gabe could hear the muffled voice of their captor ask in what sounded like frustration.

The blood curdling scream that followed brought tears to his eyes. Justin buried his face in his knees, his shoulders shaking, still curled protectively around his damaged hand.

He heard the shuffle of feet, the creak of metal, and the slam of the other cell door. Then nothing.

“J-Jack …?” Gabe asked when the silence bore down on him for too long, smothering him, filling all of his senses with dread.

“My arm’s broken, but I’m okay,” Jack said in a hoarse voice.

It worried him they’d heard nothing from Kellin in a while. Had their captor already killed him?

Then they heard Kellin’s screams fill their cells again.

It was almost better hearing nothing at all from him. Now, he worried why Kellin was being tortured more often than they were. What was that bastard doing to him? Why had he been separated from the rest of them?

Gabe couldn’t, wouldn’t, think of the possibilities.

During Nick’s turn, the guitarist swore like a sailor. Given different circumstances, Gabe might have found it amusing

“You cock sucking son of a mother fucking bitch,” he heard Nick groan through clenched teeth.

“You sure like the sound of your own voice,” their captor taunted. He must have gagged Nick at that point, but Gabe could still hear his muffled curses.

Nick came back with cuts carved into his arms and legs, but ‘none deep enough to make me bleed to death,’ Nick said.

Gabe would just have to take his word for it.

Then he felt the pinch of a dart hitting his own neck. His heart rate shot up, and then quickly slowed, turning sluggish as the sedative took hold. He tried to fight at this captor placed the rope around his neck, but his arms and legs felt like jelly, refusing to follow even the simplest of commands.

Their torturer waited until the sedative wore off until placing a flame against his skin. He tried to hold back his screams, knowing his friends could hear them and not wanting to cause them pain.

But when the monster held the flame to his skin too long, until he smelt his own flesh burning, he could hold back no longer. Mentally, he apologized over and over to his friends for not being stronger.

When Nick asked, Gabe insisted he was fine, a little worse for wear, but _totally_ fine.

He was _okay,_ really. It could be worse, right?

Food and water awaited him when his captor returned him to his cell. Though it turned his stomach and tasted like ash to him, he ate it anyways. For Nick, and Jack, and Justin, and  Kellin, and the slim hope they may still get out of this alive.

Conversation stilted around them, each too shaken by their own experience to talk much. The silence led his mind down a dark path. Would their captor stick to the pattern and torture Kellin again? Would he come for Justin again after? Would he continue until they died from the torture? Or until he got simply got bored of their presence and killed them off? Would he have to watch his friends die? Or would they have to watch him die first?

A click and a screech of metal interrupted his thoughts. His wide eyes caught Justin’s terrified gaze, who pointed towards the door. Gabe could see it then, a metal sheet sliding over the bars of the small window in the door, plunging their cell into pitch black, and cutting them completely off from the rest of the dungeon.

He heard a soft hiss, like gas escaping; felt his limbs grow heavy and numb, his head spinning, eyes drooping closed against his will. 

As consciousness fled, he thought:

_I’m not ready to die yet._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels a little boring to me, but I've re-read it so many times now I can't tell if it's because of that or if parts of it really are boring. But let me know what you think:) And sorry this took so long, but in my defense it's a really long chapter, and I've been busy protesting. While I still believe we are doomed and that Trump and the Senate will cause the end of the world, it warms my heart to see so many men and women marching on Washington and their local cities.

**_Day 8_ **

“Ah ha!” Jaime triumphantly exclaimed. Vic jumped at the suddenness of it. They’d been wondering around silently in the dark, taking random turns as they came upon them. They had come to a dead end twice now, and each time it sent his heart sinking, but his frustration soaring. He needed to find Kellin. He needed the love of his life, and every second they wasted down here was a second something horrible could be happening to him. “I know where we are,” Jaime said, striking a ridiculous Captain Morgan pose.

“Awesome. Good job, Jaime,” Mike said, throwing an arm around Jaime’s shoulder. “Where are we?”

“Here.”

“Of course,” Mike sighed, seeing it was the complete opposite end of where they wanted to be.

“What’s the quickest way to get to the main breaker?” Vic asked.

“Uh … Does anyone have a pen?” Jaime asked.

Though they both thoroughly checked their bags when they first awoke in this hellhole, Vic and Tony double checked their bags for a pen, both coming up empty.

“Of course, we managed to bring everything else we need, but we don’t have a pen,” Jaime said, laying the blueprints flat against the ground. “Tony, flashlight please.  Everyone, I need your fingers.”

“Jaime, I know you’re a weird dude, and I love you for it,” Tony said, placing a hand on Jaime’s shoulder and looking him in the eyes. “But seriously, dude, what?”

Jaime rolled his eyes. “Just put your finger here,” he said, pointing to the first room labeled ‘trap’ on the map. “Put your other pointer finger here.” Instead of asking, he grabbed Mike’s pointer finger and placed it on the blueprint.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Mike asked.

“Since we don’t have a pen to draw the quickest path out of here, I’m using you guys as a visual aide to find the quickest route,” he said, unfurling Mike’s other pointer finger and placing it next on the paper. “Vic, here and here,” he said pointing to another trap on the map and what looked like a hallway that led to the prison cells. “That’s it boys, that’s our path out of here,” Jaime said, nudging Tony in the ribs. “You doubted the master, but I am God!”

“Oh great superior being,” Tony sarcastically said, “are we supposed to do this every time you need to figure out where to go next?”

“Um, I haven’t thought that far yet,” Jaime said, crossing his arms and furrowing his brow at the blueprints, as if they held the answer.

“Jaime, get the pepper spray and tear the belt clip off of it,” Vic said.  Jaime looked confused, but followed orders. “Now use the clip to poke a hole in the map wherever our fingers are and other places along the path you need for a ‘visual aide.’”

“Good thinking, citizen. I will take it from here” Jaime said in his best impersonation of a 1950s superhero, as he poked the necessary holes in the blueprint. “Isn’t he beautiful?” he said holding up the paper like he just found a map to world’s largest treasure.

“There’s something wrong with your brain,” Tony said with a laugh and a shake of his head.

“Or is there something wrong with _your_ brain for loving me anyways?” Jaime asked with a cheeky smile, nudging Tony in the ribs with his elbow.

“Where do we go to first, Hime-Time?” Vic asked with a forced smile. He wanted to feel some of the brevity Tony and Jaime felt in this moment, but he couldn’t. Not with the fate of his boyfriend weighing heavily on his shoulders.

“Uh, just up here and around the corner to the right is the first quote unquote trap, whatever that means,” Jaime said, already walking away.

“I guess we’ll find out soon,” Mike mumbled, hurrying after him.

Vic snatched the discarded pepper spray off the ground, and shoved it in his jacket pocket, before chasing after them. Every nerve ending in his body ignited, screaming at him that something too awful to comprehend awaited them.

But he forged ahead.

Even if he wanted to, it was far too late to turn back now.

*

**_Day 7_ **

Nick groaned as the room around him swam into focus. He was getting _real_ tired of this shit. Not only had he been knocked out _again_ , but now he was once more in a room he didn’t recognize.

A thick chain held his left wrist chained to the wall, but suspiciously right in front of his face laid a key. He grabbed the key, slid it into the lock on the chain, and with a twist the lock  _clicked open_. He frowned down at the key in his hand not _at all_ worried about the implications.

The first things he noticed once free and aware were Jack, Justin, and Gabe lying on the ground next to him, all still breathing, but unconscious, their wrists chained to the wall as well. He slipped the chain into the chain closest to him, his frown deepening when the lock clicked open, freeing Jack.

 _What kind of sick game is he playing now?_ Nick thought, using the key to free Justin and Gabe.

He glanced around his new prison, taking in the chain hanging from the middle of the room over what looked like an autopsy table with a big, black bag on it. His eyes skimmed over the wall of whips and other instruments of torture along the wall by the only exit, not wanting to tarry too long on those particular horrors.  

_Was he going to kill them now?_

No, Nick didn’t think so. If he was going to kill them, he wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of bringing them together in this room.

_Was he going to torture the others in front of him?_

Nick resolutely stamped down that thought. Hearing it happen hurt too much as it was. He didn’t think he could stand watching his friends get tortured.

But if their captor was going to torture them, why were they all free to roam the room?

He glanced around the room for more clues as to what game their captor was playing, noticing the sink, medical cabinet, and …

“Kellin!” he said, rushing across the room. Kellin waved weakly at him. Unlike himself and the others, handcuffs held Kellin chained to the bed, and the key in his hand did not fit into the cuffs. It struck him as odd, and a tiny naggling feeling attacked his gut. But he forced it down, not willing to give the horrible thought merit without proof just yet. “Thank God you’re okay,” Nick said, squeezing him in a tight hug. He let go the instant he heard Kellin gasp in pain. “What did he do?” he quietly asked. Kellin shrugged, face twisting into a grimace. “Can I see?” he asked fearing the worst. He vaguely knew what happened to the others, and how much damage had been done to their bodies. He also knew none of them were in danger of dying from their injuries at the moment. Not knowing how bad Kellin was hurt sent his anxiety soaring. He could be dying right now, and Nick wouldn’t even know it.

 Before Kellin could answer, though, Nick heard the rustling of fabric and various groans as the others began to stir.

“Is that Kellin?” Justin asked, nearly flying across the room and launching himself at Kellin. Nick stopped him with a hand on his chest before Justin could make the same mistake Nick just did. Justin deflated, but he seemed to understand if the way he curled his injured fingers tightly against his chest said anything. Instead, Justin sat next to Kellin on the bed, knocking their shoulders gently together. Kellin smile weakly back at him. 

“Have you been in this room the entire time?” Gabe asked, sitting on the other side of Kellin. Gabe, Justin, and Kellin met and became close friends in high school. Everyone in SWS considered themselves best friends, but the three of them had a tighter bond, and were often extremely protective of each other. Living on a tour bus meant they each got on each other’s nerves constantly and fought like siblings. But it was impossible to get in an argument with one of the three without another coming to their defense. It could be extremely frustrating and annoying to Nick, but he learned to live with it, and appreciated their loyalty. The same loyalty they extended to _him_ if someone outside of the band tried to start shit with him. A three-way argument between the three of them, however, was still the most entertaining thing Nick had ever seen, and involved a lot of silent gestures and intense whispering, and generally ended abruptly,  usually while someone was in mid-sentence. To Nick it seemed like there was no reason at all for the argument to end. It just did. The three of them would start laughing, and he and Jack would look at each other and roll their eyes because they had no idea what was going on, and their bandmates were totally insane.

Now, instead of being frustrating, it stoked the fire of hope within him. They would need that unbreakable bond to get out here, he thought.

“Yeah,” Kellin answered Justin, his voice hoarse. It made him wonder if Kellin had been tortured while they were _right there,_ just mere feet away.

“Do you know why he brought us here?” Jack asked. He was starting to look a little pale, the pain of his broken arm taking its toll on him.

Kellin titled his head in the direction of the black bag on the autopsy table. “I think he wants us to patch each other up,” Kellin said, a shudder running through him. 

“That’s weird. And creepy,” Jack said, stalking over to the bag. Jack poked at the bag several times with his good hand, quickly retracting his finger each time as if the bag would bite him, before finally prying the bag open. “I think Kellin’s right. It’s full of medical supplies. There’s gauze, and peroxide,” he said, taking each item out of the bag and tossing them back in as he riffled through the contents, “and a whole bunch of other stuff.”

“Does anyone even know the first thing about first aid?” Justin asked, sliding closer to Kellin when he shivered.

“I do,” Nick said, motioning Jack to bring the bag over.

“You do?” Jack asked skeptically.

“Dude, I was in two hardcore bands that didn’t make a lot of money, but partied hard, and did stupid shit just as hard,” Nick said, bending over and checking the contents of the bag himself after Jack placed it on the ground near his feet. “We got injured a lot, and usually didn’t have the time or money to stop at the hospital. You learn first aid quickly when it becomes a necessity. I legit once had to stitch up my lead vocalist’s leg in a moving van on the way to San Diego once. I know shit, okay?”

“That’s badass, man,” Gabe said.

“I know. Now who wants to go first?” Unsurprisingly, no one said anything. “Come on, someone volunteer. No? No takers. Okay, eenie meenie miney Justin.”

“What? Me? I don’t think. I’m not that –”

“Show me your hand,” Nick commanded. He wasn’t playing around. They were all injured and needed first aid, and if their captor wanted to give them the opportunity, he was taking it. Who knew how long he’d give them?

Hesitantly, Justin showed him his mangled hand, nothing but a bloody mess where his fingernails should be. “Let’s do this over to the sink,” Nick said, dragging the bassist over to the tiny faucet.

“What are you going to do?” Justin asked.

“Jack, can you grab me the peroxide and some bandages,” Nick said, ignoring Justin.

“No, no, no. I don’t think so. It’s fine,” Justin said, tugging on his wrist, and digging in his heels. “Really.”

“We have to take care of this before it gets infected,” Nick said, clamping down harder on Justin’s wrist. Nick may be short, but he was stocky, and Justin’s twinky figure couldn’t stop him from dragging him over to the sink. He hated the thought of hurting his friends further than they already were, but he also knew how necessary it was to take care of their wounds before infection set in. “I will have Jack and Gabe hold you down if I have to.”

“Fine,” Justin reluctantly gave in, letting Nick maneuver his hand over the sink, and holding it there. “Are there cotton balls, or washcloths, or gauze, or something to pour the peroxide on?”

“No,” Jack answered. “But Kellin says check the medical cabinet.”

“Can you do that?” Nick asked, gently holding Justin’s wrist over the sink. He didn’t want to risk Justin freaking out, and deciding he didn’t want to go first after all.

He watched over his shoulder as Jack pried the medical cabinet open. Jack whistled in surprise. “There’s like a whole shelf of cotton swabs, gauze, and bandages.”

“Did the guy like knock off a doctor’s office or something?” Gabe asked. Nick noticed he hadn’t left Kellin’s side, choosing to stick as close as possible, while Jack checked over the supplies and brought Nick what he needed.

Nick tore open the bag with his teeth, and with one hand poured some peroxide on a cotton ball. “This is going to hurt like hell,” he warned, clamping down on Justin’s wrist hard, before swiping the peroxide over the first finger.

Justin’s whole body jerked, as he instinctually tried to pull away from the pain, screaming behind clenched teeth. By the time Nick cleaned each finger, slathered antibiotic cream over them, and wrapped the hand in gauze, Justin was shaking with the pain, the color completely drained from his face.

“Gabe, get over here,” Nick commanded, as Justin stumbled back over to Kellin.

“He just burned me,” Gabe tried to argue. “I don’t have any cuts or anything.”

“Burns get infected easier than cuts do,” Nick said. Don’t ask him how he knew that, he just did. Truth be told, though, he wanted Gabe to go next because he had no clue on what to do about Jack’s broken arm, and he was almost afraid to find out how badly Kellin was hurt.

Gabe trudged over like a child about to be scolded by his parents.

“Where did he burn you?” Nick asked as gently as he knew how. His personality was gruff. He knew that. But he also knew right now his band needed all the tenderness they could get.

“Just my arms, and my stomach,” Gabe said. “Really, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I’ll worry about you more if you don’t let me do this,” Nick said. Reluctantly, Gabe held out his arms. Nick worked as quickly as he could to clean out each of the opened blisters decorating Gabe’s skin. Gabe ground his teeth together so hard, Nick could hear the creak of his teeth grinding together. His face was pinched, eyes squeezed together, and a few tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, but he held in his cries as the peroxide cleaned out the open wounds on his body. He slathered Gabe’s arms in the burn cream found in the medical bag, and wrapped them in gauze.

“Why do you think he’s doing this?” Gabe asked, pulling his shift up so Nick could check the burns on his stomach.

“Because he’s a psychopath,” Nick said, working efficiently to clean out the open wounds on Gabe’s stomach.

“No, I know that, but why give us the medical supplies? Why let us see each other?” Gabe asked, grinding his teeth once more as Nick dabbed the peroxide on his stomach.

Nick glanced over his shoulder. Justin and Jack were both sitting with Kellin, far enough away that they couldn’t hear him. “I think there’s a practical reason to it. I think he wants us to make sure each other doesn’t die so he can prolong the torture as long as possible.”

 “And?” Gabe managed to choke out as Nick finished swiping peroxide over the last cut.

 Nick sighed heavily. “And I think, well, it’s torture, isn’t it? Hearing, and now seeing, exactly what kind of pain our friends have gone through.  And it’s torture knowing we’ll get this brief time together to comfort each other, before it’s probably torn away from us again.”

“Isn’t he worried that together we might try to hatch an escape plan?” Gabe asked as Nick lathered the blisters with burn ointment and wrapped gauze around his stomach.

“He’s a psychopath. He’s over-confident. They all are. You good?” Nick asked, securing the gauze.

Gabe huffed a bitter laugh.

“Yeah, sorry. Dumb question,” Nick said, squeezing Gabe’s shoulder briefly. “Jack, your turn bud.”

 “Is realigning bones in your arsenal of first aid knowledge?” Jack joked, using his left arm to stabilize his broken right arm as he held it out to  Nick. They both knew the answer was no.

“We need two sturdy sticks, or something like that. Something that’s about the length of Jack’s forearm that won’t bend or break easily,” Nick said, searching the medical cabinet. He actually read about that in a fiction book once, but he assumed it would work. It would be like a makeshift cast, right? And Jack never needed to know where he learned this from. 

Nick stared into the cabinet blankly. There were lots of soft, squishy things like medical tape, gauze, Band-Aids, antibiotic creams, and the boxes they were held in, and some pill bottles, like activated charcoal, and aspirin. Nothing popped out at him as being sturdy enough to hold bone together, though.

“Move aside, peasant,” Justin said, gently pushing him away. “You may be able to fix people, but I’m the one that can build anything.”

Justin pondered for a moment, eyes scanning each item, before he grabbed the two biggest boxes of tongue depressors and the medical tape. He dumped the tongue depressors on the autopsy table and lined three, which were about the length of Jack’s forearm, from end to end. Over that, he took three more tongue depressors and laid them on top of the first layer, but staggered the second layer so it didn’t quite match up with the first. He then wrapped the entire thing from one end to the other with medical tape. He then made a second one exactly like that, and taped the two together. He then made a second one exactly like the first. “It’s probably not as sturdy as a plaster cast or a stick, but it’ll do the job,” Justin said, handing them over to Nick.

“Thanks, dude. We’re lucky to have you with us right now,” Nick said, patting Justin on the shoulder. The smile in response never reached Justin’s eyes.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Jack asked, holding out his arm for Nick.

“Not really,” Nick said, first wrapping Jack’s arm in gauze from palm to elbow.  “I do know this is going to hurt,” he said apologetically, placing the two makeshift sticks on either side of Jack’s arm. “Justin, can you hold those as against Jack’s arm one on either side?” he asked. Justin placed them gently against Jack’s broken arm.

“Okay on three,” Nick said. “One,” Nick squished his hands together so the two makeshift sticks were tight against Jack’s arms. Jack’s knees buckled against the sudden onslaught of pain, but he held steady. Nick used the medical tape to bound Jack’s arm to the sticks as tightly as possible. He had Jack wiggle his fingers to make sure he wasn’t cutting off the circulation to his hands. “Feel better?”

“Not really,” Jack sarcastically said through clenched teeth, breathing through the pain.

Nick quickly cleaned the cuts on his own arms and legs and the two burn marks on his chest from electrodes, watching the peroxide sizzle and bubble on his flesh, feeling like he lit a match under his skin, before slathering antibiotic cream over everything and wrapping it in gauze.

“Can you keep the guys back a little while I check on Kellin?” Nick asked Gabe quietly after pulling him aside. Gabe nodded in understanding, as Nick gathered up the supplies he thought he might need and headed over.

“Can you take your shirt off for me, please?” Nick quietly asked Kellin, kneeling next to the bed. He watched from the corner of his eye as Gabe held Justin and Jack back with a hand on each of their shoulders. He knew, they both knew, without even having to ask, how self-conscious Kellin was. Nobody fussed with their hair that much, constantly covered their face with their hair, and took that many selfies without having some sort of body image issues. Plus, they lived on a bus together, a teeny tiny bus, and changed together in the same green room or whatever itty bitty box Warped Tour provided them before shows, and still Nick can count on one hand how many times he’d seen Kellin shirtless. He didn’t think that Kellin was ashamed of his body, or thought his body ugly. He just thought Kellin was incredibly self-conscious and awkward in his own skin and uncomfortable showing it off.  “I just want to help.”

Kellin’s fingers hesitated at the hem of his shirt, before he lifted the shirt over his head. At first glance, the only thing Nick noticed were a few bruises on his chest that wrapped around his sides. It’s when Kellin turned and showed him his back that Nick stopped dead in his tracks.

His entire back was black and blue from shoulder to hip, probably from one of the whips he saw earlier hung on the wall. In a few places, the whip had cut through the skin, leaving a long gash. He hissed at the sight, reaching out to touch the raw flesh. Even stopping just short of making contact, Nick could still feel the heat radiating off of Kellin’s skin.

“Can you lie down on your stomach?” Nick asked. He waited until Kellin settled before swiping the peroxide over the cuts. Kellin buried his face in the pillow, smothering his cries as the peroxide burned through each cut.

As he waited for Kellin to catch his breath after cleaning each cut, he noticed something then. Something that confirmed his suspicions earlier of why Kellin had been separated from the rest of him, why he was tethered to a bed, and why Kellin seemed perpetually on the verge of tears.

It was blood; blood in the seat of his pants.

It was barely noticeable against the dark fabric of Kellin’s jeans, but there was no way that blood trickled down from his back.

“Can you guys go away and give us a moment?” Nick said, pointedly staring at Jack, Justin, and Gabe, who had inched their way closer while he cleaned Kellin’s back, until they finally retreated to the other side of the room again. “He raped you,” Nick said once they were out of earshot. It was blunt, and straight forward, and he felt like he just punched Kellin in the face, but he didn’t know how to be delicate about it.

Kellin looked away, red coloring his cheeks in shame. Nick wasn’t asking, but Kellin nodded his head in affirmation.

“Has the bleeding stopped?”

Kellin meekly nodded his head, though Nick wasn’t quite sure he believed him.

“Okay, uh,” he said, digging through the medical bag for the analgesic and antibiotic cream he spotted earlier. “Use this. I can hold up a sheet to give you some privacy –”

“What does it matter?” Kellin quietly interrupted.

“What?”

“He’s just going to do it again,” Kellin said, burying his face in his hands.  “What is Vic going to say if we make it out of this?”

Nick reached for his shoulder, but realized his mistake and pulled back last second. “He’d say it wasn’t your fault, and that he loves you no matter what.”

“But –”

“Trust me, I’m his cousin. I know. I also know he’d want you to use this if it would make you feel better. All right? I’ll hold the sheet, and I won’t look. Nobody, but me, has to know. Okay?”

Kellin meekly nodded again. Nick tossed him the tube, and held up the sheet over his face so he couldn’t peek even if he wanted to.

“What are you doing?” Justin asked.

Nick glared at him, until Justin shut his mouth with a click and said nothing more.

“Okay. I’m done,” Kellin said a moment later. Nick lowered the sheet to see Kellin’s bowed head.

“You keep that,” he said, gesturing to the tube. “Hide it under the pillow, or under the mattress, or somewhere he won’t look.”

Kellin nodded his head, but didn’t look up.

“Hey,” Nick said, gently placing a hand on Kellin’s knee. “You’re gonna see Vic again. I promise.”

Kellin nodded again, gaze fixated on the bed sheets still.

“Let’s wrap up your back and then you can put your shirt back on, okay?”

“There’s no point,” Kellin said, snatching his shirt off the bed and slipping it over his head. “It won’t last through the next beating.”

Nick sighed, but let it go. After all, Kellin was right and they both knew it, but …

Nick had a plan. Well, part of a plan, and if it actually worked there _would be no next time_. “We’re going to get out of here,” he insisted to Kellin. “Guys,” he said motioning the rest of his band over. Justin and Gabe eyed him critically before taking their spots on either side of Kellin again.

“I think I’ve got a plan. But … it all depends on you, Justin.”

*

**_Day 8_ **

The blueprints led them to a solid, iron door that stretched to the ceiling. If the map was correct, behind that door the first trap laid. Vic insisted on being the first one through. They knew nothing of what lay beyond, and he wanted to protect the guys as much as he could. All three of them were huddled against his back, though, each one with a hand on the back of his shirt. His skinny body wouldn’t shield them from much. “Okay,” Vic said, and took a deep breath. “You guys ready?” he asked his hand on the handle.

His brother nodded, so Vic turned the handle and pushed the door open.

Nothing happened.

The room was dim and approximately the size of a standard bedroom, maybe 30 feet long , that appeared to open up into a hallway on the other end. The floor looked like some sort of grid from what he could see, made up of tiles approximately 12 by 12 inches in size.  Cautiously, Vic stepped forward, each of his band members still huddled against his back. Still nothing happened.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Jaime said, stepping past Vic and taking his own cautious step forward. He shared a look with Mike, who shrugged and did the same on Vic’s other side.

“Ahhh, mother fucker!” Mike screamed, his whole body jerking before he jumped back quickly.

“What? What is it? What happened?” Vic asked, turning to face Mike, his hands patting down his brother looking for any obvious injuries.

“The floor shocked me!” he yelled, pointing at the offending tile on the floor.

“That’s uh …”

“Sick and twisted,” Jaime finished for him.

“Yeah,” Vic said. “You okay, Mike?”

“I think so. It mostly just shocked me. No pun intended,” Mike said, rubbing the sole of his right foot along the ground, probably where the shock originated.  “Wish I had rubber shoes, though,” he added with a forced chuckle.

“Right there with you, bud,” Jaime said, standing stock still.

“It must be some sort of electric maze,” Tony said. “Some of the tiles are safe, and others well …” he said, gesturing towards Mike.

 “How do you want to play this one? Tony, you’re the survival expert apparently? Thoughts?” Jaime said.

“I …” Tony said, and cut himself off with an ‘I don’t know’ gesture.

“We could make a break for it, all run across the room really quickly,” Jaime said with a chuckle. “Like a super smash brothers free-for-all.”

“Or we could take it one tile at a time,” Tony suggested. “One person moves forward one tile, and we take turns being first so the same person doesn’t get shocked each time.”

Mike crouched down at the same time as Vic to get a better look at the floor. “There might be something different about the tiles that shock you,” Mike said, reaching out towards the tile that electrocuted him. Vic grabbed his wrist, giving his brother a stern look.

“I wasn't going to touch it,” Mike insisted, rolling his eyes at Vic’s big brother protective act.

“Sure you weren’t,” Vic said. “I say we go with Mike’s idea first, and then Tony’s if there’s nothing different about them.”

“Aww,” Jaime pouted. “Nobody ever likes my ideas."

“You are free to run across the room if you want, Hime-Time, and tell us how it goes,” Tony teased, nudging Jaime’s shoulder with his own.

“Maybe I will,” Jaime said, crossing his arms and sticking his tongue out at Tony.

“Tony, can you illuminate this tile right here,” Vic said, pointing to the one that shocked his brother.

“It’s not a different color, or size, or shape,” Tony said as he shone the flashlight on the tile.

“Can you run the flashlight around the edges?” Vic asked.

“Sure,” Tony said, slowly shining the flashlight around the entire tile.

“It’s not raised off the ground further than the rest,” Mike said.

“Wait, stop. Right there,” Vic said, throwing his hand out to stop Tony from moving the flashlight. “I thought I saw something.”

“I don’t see anything,” Jaime said, squinting at the tile.

“Right there, there’s an X on the tile in, I think, sharpie,” Vic said, pointing to a tiny black X along the edge of the tile near the right corner.

“I doubt our captor would make it that easy,” Tony said. He ran the flashlight over the tiles both Vic and Jaime were standing on, and found nothing. No small black X in sharpie. “It could just be a trick.”

“They could have marked the tiles so they could get across safely, and thought no one would notice,” Mike said. “I doubt very many people that end up down here have a flashlight.”

 “It might not have been whoever made this maze. It could have been one of the previous victims before us,” Vic said. Kellin always, _always_ had a sharpie in his pocket. After a crazed fan asked him for an autograph, and went ballistic, actually physically attacking Kellin because he didn’t have a writing utensil, his boyfriend obsessively carried a sharpie around with him wherever he went. Before each tour, Kellin stocked up on sharpies from their local Staples, and he always doubled, sometimes triple checked, his pockets whenever he left the tour bus just to make sure he had on one him.  “Kellin always has a sharpie on him.”

“We don’t know for sure it was Kellin,” Mike said.

“I know,” Vic said.

“If it was, though, at least you know he made it this far,” Jaime said, attempting to comfort him.

 _Yeah, one step closer to being tortured,_ Vic bitterly thought, not comforted in the least by Jaime’s words.

“We could test the theory. Find another tile with an X, and see if it shocks someone,” Jaime suggested.

“You first,” Tony said, playfully shoving Jaime.

“Why do I always get picked to be the guinea pig?” Jaime whined.

“Because you usually volunteer,” Tony pointed out.

“Because usually you guys are too chicken shit to do whatever it is that needs to be done, and obviously, as the manliest one in this group, I have to do it.”

“Whatever gets you through the night,” Tony teased.

“Let’s just avoid the tiles with an X for now,” Mike interjected. “Who wants to go first?”

“I will,” Vic volunteered, taking the flashlight from Tony before he could protest.

It was slow going, checking each tile as they practically crawled across the room. The Xs were tiny and almost blended in with the dirt covering the floor and never in the same spot, but that was probably the intention. Kellin … whoever made the Xs had probably wanted them to go unnoticed. They almost made it to the end when one row of tiles appeared where every single tile had a small black X marked on it.

“That’s sick,” Tony pointed out when he noticed.

“He wanted to make sure no one got out of here unharmed,” Vic said. His thoughts turned to Kellin and the rest of SWS, wondered how often they’d been hurt trying to get across. He shook the thought away. Now was not the time.  

“I guess we just hop over it then,” Jaime said, already taking a giant step over one of the tiles.

“Jaime, wait,” Vic, grabbing Jaime’s wrist to stop him, but it was already too late.

“Yowch!” Jaime said, jumping  back and grabbing his foot. “Two in a row? Who does that?”

“Psychopaths,” Vic said, leaning forward trying to get a better look at the next row of tiles. In the dim lighting it was hard to tell which ones had Xs when they were so far away. He turned the flashlight back to the whole row of Xs trying to find some clue as to where to go next.

“We may just have to try one at a time,” Tony mumbled.

“Or make a break for it. We’re almost to the end,” Jaime said.

“Hey, wait, I think I saw something. Put the flashlight back on this tile,” Mike said, pointing to the one farthest left in the room. “Right there,” Mike said when Vic illuminated the tile. “There’s a tiny little arrow.”

“You think they were telling us to go over that one?” Tony asked.

“Won’t know until we try,” Jaime said with a shrug.

Mike took the first cautious step over, tapping his toe on the tile lightly. When nothing happened, he placed his whole foot down. “We’re good, guys,” he said with two thumbs up.

Thankfully, as they carefully tread through the rest of the room, there were no more surprises like that.  But just before they made it into the hallway, Vic noticed something:  large cursive letters branded into one of the tiles with sharpie.

He stopped, fingers hovering over the lettering. Instead of an X, there were three simple words that had him clenching his fist, steeling his resolve:

_Kellin <3’s Vic_

*

**_Day 7 to 8_ **

“What do you think?” Nick said, throwing his arms out wide. He stood before the rest of his band who had huddled together on the bed with Kellin. Nick had pulled over the autopsy table with a few items he took from the medical cabinet, including activated charcoal and face masks, placed on top, and was now gesturing at the items like he was a game show host.

“I think you’re crazy,” Jack said.

“Definitely crazy,” Gabe said.

“But Justin, is it possible? Can you do it?”

“I, I think so,” Justin said. “But I can’t guarantee it’ll be effective. It depends on  whatever gas he’s using to knock us out.”

“It’s beats not trying at all,” Nick said.  He was _not_ going to stand by and watch his friends get beaten to death. Not if there was anything he could do to prevent it. He'd rather die fighting if that's what it came to. 

Justin’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Besides the charcoal and the face masks, I’m going to need the cotton balls, medical tape, some sort of tube, and all the alcohol bottles I saw in the cabinet. We’ll need to empty out and rinse the bottles,” he said, jumping to his feet and heading over to the cabinet. With Nick’s help, they carried back all the supplies they needed. With a few grumbles and a whole lot of tape later, Justin had two functional gas masks.

“I knew you could do it!” Nick said.

Justin looked down at his feet and shrugged. “I need something to poke a hole in the bottom of the bottle,” he mumbled.

“Will the key to the chains work? Our captor left it as a present,” Nick said.

Justin shrugged again. “Maybe?”

“I’ll go get it,” Nick said, wandering back over to the chains to grab the key. He felt a little funny as he walked over, like his knees were getting weak and his body heavy. But he shook the feeling away, chalking it up to the last however long they’d been there finally catching up to him, and the adrenaline to waking up in this room fading. He tossed the key to Justin from across the room, choosing to stay there a moment to catch his breath.

“What are we going to do with them, though?” Kellin asked. “I’m not going to be much help.” He rattled the handcuff holding his wrist captive against the railing to make his point.

“I’ll do it,” Nick said, resting his weight against the wall. “It was my idea. I’ll take the risk.”

“I’ll take the other one,” Gabe said, grabbing it from Justin.

“Are you sure?” Jack asked him.

“I’m sure,” Gabe said. “How do you want to play this, Nick?”

“When the gas comes back on,” he said, pausing to take a breath. “We put these on, wait for him to come back in, and then when he’s close enough, attack from behind. So if he’s facing you,” he said, pausing to take a deep breath again as he started to feel light headed, “I’ll attack from behind, and … and vice versa. Is anyone else feeling lightheaded?”

He heard a chorus of mumbled agreements. Jack and Kellin were slumped against each other, Gabe and Justin already on their knees.

“Oh shit,” Nick said, crashing to his knees  as his legs gave  out on him. “Hide the … Hide the …” he said, collapsing to his side. He thought he saw Gabe stuff one of the gas masks down his pajama pants,  and Justin shove one in his vest pocket just as the grey around the edges of his vision exploded, and everything turned black.

He woke up in the torture chamber, his wrists tied above his head with rope that went through a loop in the ceiling, and then tied to another loop on the wall opposite him. A candle sat under the rope, burning through the fibers bit by bit.

And for when the rope _snapped_ , a bed of nails and sharp glass waited to break his fall.

He could only hope Justin and Gabe made it out with both gas masks undetected. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be a four part chapter, but I figured since it's taking me so long to finish I'd post one shorter chapter now rather than make you guys wait for a longer chapter.  
> Also, there are two chapters in this story that in my mind are the reason this story is rated M. This is one of those chapters. The next couple of chapters or so are going to be pretty rough for the boys. Don't hate me.  
> There is also one instance in this chapter where a derogatory term is used. Again, it is not my opinion, but that of my character, and he is a very evil man, and it fits his personality and the scenario because he wants to inflict as much damage as possible.

**_Day 8_ **

Jaime stumbled next to him for the third time in almost as many steps it seemed.  The bassist just barely caught himself on the wall, and stopped for a moment, pausing to catch his breath before jogging  back to Vic’s side. Mike and Tony had fallen behind further and further as time dragged on.

“I think we need to stop and rest,” Vic finally said, glancing at his brother and Tony who were leaning heavily against one other as they walked, each taking turns keeping their eyes open to steer the other in the right direction. He hated to admit it, but they would need to rest and recover before they moved on. This was not a maze they were going to be able to make it through in one day, and they would be of no use to Kellin and the rest of SWS if they dropped from exhaustion while trying to rescue them.

“We’re almost to the next trap. Why don’t we stop there,” Jaime said. His jaw cracked around a huge yawn.

“We should probably eat a protein bar, and catch a few hours of sleep if we can,” Tony said.

“As long as the floor doesn’t shock me,” Mike grumbled, rubbing his foot absentmindedly against the ground.

“How much farther, Jaime?” Vic asked. His own legs felt sore and weak. They were all in excellent shape – performing several times a week necessitated that each of them were at the peak of health – but this maze pushed them to the limits, pushed them so far past anything they had ever endured before, probably as it was designed to.

It was meant to break them.

But Vic would _not_ allow that.

“It’s in this hallway,” Jaime said, cracking another huge yawn. “But I can’t be certain how far.”

Vic felt his eyes droop closed as they continued on. Even Jaime had fallen silent, something they would have teased Jaime for if any of them had the energy. With nothing but the monotonous concrete walls for entertainment, staying awake got harder and harder. He felt his eyes slip closed for what felt like just a moment, and then he felt weightless.

He jerked awake when his knees hit against the concrete floor.

“Woah, you okay there?” Jaime asked, extending his hand to help Vic up.

“M’ fine,” he mumbled, letting Jaime pull him to his feet. He dusted his pants off, even though at this point the gesture was pointless.

“Maybe we should stop here,” Mike suggested, leaning his weight against the wall and letting his eyes slip shut.

“We’ve got to be close to the next trap, though” Jaime muttered, bringing he blueprints almost to his nose as he inspected them.

“Actually, I think it’s right there,” Tony said, shining the flashlight down the hall. Just on the edge of the flashlight’s beam stood a solid iron door, an exact replica of the door to the first trap.

“I really hope that we haven’t gone in a big giant circle and that’s the same door,” Jaime said with a nervous chuckle.

“It can’t be. We left that door open,” Mike said.

“Who said we were down here alone?” Jaime said.

No one replied. Just because they hadn’t seen anyone else didn’t mean their kidnapper wasn’t right around the corner watching their every move. Vic shuddered in disgust at the thought.

When they made it to the end of this maze, he vowed to burn the whole monstrosity to the ground.

Wearily, they stumbled to the door. What was maybe a 100 feet  felt like a mile in the dark endless maze.

Vic reached for the door when Tony’s hand around his wrist stopped him. “I think we should eat first, and catch our breath before we find out what’s hiding behind that door.”

Vic nodded. As much as he wanted to forge ahead, none of them were in any shape to deal with their sick, demented kidnapper’s tricks.

Jaime sank to the ground with a groan, expertly catching the protein bar Tony launched at his head.  Mike had already let his let his eyes slip shut again, so his bar smacked him in the face.

“Shit, sorry,” Tony laughed.

Mike waved him off with a groan, blindly searching for the food thrown at him without opening his eyes.

Vic reached his protesting body towards Tony and grabbed his bar out of Tony’s hands. He was far too tired to attempt catching anything at the moment.

“Do you guys want to nap first and then see what’s behind door number B first?” Jaime asked, nibbling on his protein bar.

 _Number B?_ Tony mouthed at Vic, and Vic felt his lips twitch into a smile.

“Or should we see what it is first, and then nap?”

“I think we should at least see what’s behind the door first,” Vic said. “In case it’s something we need to form a plan to get past.”

“I agree,” Tony said, taking a small bite out of his bar.

“Maybe Kellin and the guys left us another clue,” Jaime said.

“Maybe,” Vic mumbled, feeling mixed emotions about the prospect of finding another piece of Kellin in this maze. While a clue from Kellin meant they would get to the end of the maze quicker and provide proof Kellin made it this far alive, it also meant his boyfriend made it one step closer to being tortured, a scenario he still could not wrap his mind around, nor could he ever prepare himself for.

 _As long as I find Kellin alive, that’s all that matter,_ he told himself, and hoped it would be true.

“This is a great bonding experience,” Jaime piped up after they had each finished their bars and sat in silence, trying to scrape up enough energy to drag themselves to their feet and open the door.

Tony shoved Jaime's shoulder playfully. “Living in a tiny camper for almost four straight years and a tiny bus ten months out of the year after that wasn’t enough for you?”

“No. Well, yes … That’s a trick question,” Jaime said, pointing an accusing finger at Tony. Tony huffed in response. “I just mean, now we really get to see who each other are, striped down and bare.”

“Jaime, we’ve already seen the real you ‘striped down and bare,’” Mike said with the appropriate air quotes, “the first time you got drunk with Vic and I, declared a no pants party, and stripped down to your boxers. I’m pretty sure you threatened to touch anyone who feel asleep’s face with your dick.”

“You’re making that last part up.”

“You totally did,” Tony smirked, lethargically punching Jaime in the arm.

“I didn’t think I could handle being in a band with you at first because you talked way too fucking much,” Vic said, flopping his head to look at Jaime. “But believe or not, that’s the night I knew it would be fine. I figured if that’s the most annoying you got, then I could definitely handle it.”

“That’s sweet … I think,” Jaime said.

Vic’s lips involuntarily twitched up into a smile again.

“All right, let’s pop this coochie and find out what’s behind door number B so we can all take a nap,” Jaime said, jumping to his feet with far more energy than Vic felt at the moment. He let Jaime drag him to his feet, groaning as his sore legs protested.

While Jaime helped the other two up, Vic turned the knob and pushed the door open.

The creak of the door on its rusted hinges echoed off the empty walls of the hallway. Vic felt the others crowd against his back, Tony shining the flashlight into the room.

Unlike the last room, there were no tiles on the floor, just thick, solid concrete. On the other end of the room stood another iron door with a heavy padlock weighing it down, keeping the door firmly locked.

He took a hesitant step forward, the others shuffling in around him. Tony moved the flashlight around the room, the light glinting off of something large and shiny on the left side of the room.

“What is that?” Jaime asked, fisting his hand in the back of Vic’s shirt and pulling him in front of him.

Tony shone the flashlight on the wall to their left. He heard Mike gasp as they both realized what they were looking at wasn’t one large object.

Instead on the wall hung thousands of different keys, small gold, some silver, some old, some new, all glinting in the light of the flashlight mockingly.

Vic looked at the one padlock on the door preventing their escape and back to the thousands of different possibilities to freedom. His stomach dropped as dread filled the empty spaces in him.

And then Jaime said the one thing screaming in all their heads.

“We’re fucked.”

*

**_Day 8_ **

It felt like agony. Every caress of his calloused hands, every _snap_ of his captor’s hips, every slap against his skin, like liquid lava burning through his veins.

It tore the very fabric of his being apart the way he violated his body, exposed the most intimate pieces of him to endless pain and suffering, pieces meant only for the one he loved most.

Meant only for Vic.

Kellin kept his head turned, eyes glued to the concrete walls. He tried taking his mind far away to the log house by the lake his parents owned, and that he and Vic vacationed at on occasion. A place where the crickets sang at night, and the still waters welcomed him, and the warmth of Vic’s embrace protected him. A place where nothing _ever_ hurt.

But the friction of the sheets against the torn flesh of his back and the blunt pressure piercing his insides like a torch dragged him to the present every time his mind found shelter.

So he stopped trying, and felt every thrust, every drag of skin against skin, every moment of pain inflicted on more than just his body, helpless to do anything at all about it.

His torturer grabbed his chin and forced his head straight. Kellin squeezed his eyes shut.

He didn’t want to remember this. He didn't want a clear picture to haunt him of exactly what his own rape looked like so he saw it again and again and again in his dreams.

“Open your eyes, beautiful,” his captor commanded.

 _Or what,_ stuck to the tip of his tongue. He knew exactly what would happen if he refused to comply.

He kept his eyes firmly shut anyways.

His captor stilled his hips. The hand left his chin. Kellin's head _cracked_ to the side, his check burning red hot after a palm connected with his face. A sharp, hard thrust sent his back sliding up the sheets, the dirty mattress dragging against the cuts on his back like a rake clawing at his skin. It was nothing compared to the agony tearing through his insides as if they were being drawn and quartered in the most humiliating manner possible.

“I said open your eyes,” his captor ground out, a hand returning to wrap around his neck.

Kellin pried his eyes open, staring just above his captor’s head at the concrete ceiling that smothered his cries.

“Good boy,” his captor whispered into his hear. He cringed, jerking his head away as the man licked the shell of his ear.

The thread holding the pieces of himself together snapped and unraveled. Tears rolled down his cheeks. His captor moaned in pleasure at the sight of it. His captor's thrusts become harsh and erratic, until with a loud, grating groan, he stopped.

Kellin pressed his eyes shut, trying to regain control of his heaving breaths. He hissed as his captor tugged himself free. It _burned,_ like the red hot coals of a dying fire. His body pulsed in pain with the beat of his heart.

“Can your little Mexican boyfriend satisfy you like that?” his captor asked, his hand briefly squeezing around Kellin’s neck before freeing him of his filthy touch entirely.

Kellin laughed, a hollow, mirthless sound. He turned his head away to stare at the blocks of concrete of his prison again.

“You’ll never even come close,” he said with more bravado than he felt. “You could never measure up to someone like Vic. Someone with confidence, and kindness, and maturity. Sex isn’t about power. And it’s not just about pleasure. It’s about love. And Vic _loves_ me. You will never know what that feels like. You will never even know the first thing about love.”

His captor clenched his fists, a growl escaping past his lips pressed thin. "What did you say to me?" he asked. Without warning, he struck Kellin across the cheek again. Kellin watched in trepidation as his captor dug in his pockets and pulled out a key, jabbing it in the handcuffs keeping Kellin’s wrist captive several times before finally the key slammed into place and clicked the cuffs free. A hand fisted into his hair, dragging him from the bed. Before Kellin could even get his feet under him, the man shoved him so hard he crashed into the portable autopsy table. His shoulder clipped the edge, sending the table rolling away and Kellin flying to the ground. He just barely caught himself on his hands and knees, when a hand fisted in his hair again, dragging him to his feet. An arm locked around his waist, holding his struggling body in place as his captor snapped the chains attached to the ceiling around his wrists. He stumbled as the grip around his waist loosened. But his captor grabbed the other end of the chains looped through the ceiling, pulling until Kellin’s arms were raised above his head, his body taut, feet just barely touching the ground. Exactly how he was when he'd first awoken in this room.

The man stalked over to the wall of weapons, grabbing a whip thinner than the one he used on his back before. Without a word, he raised the whip and lashed it across his naked back. He clenched his hands around the chain, unable to keep his cry of pain from echoing through the room as the whip cut through his flesh.

Over and over the whip lashed against his skin.

He screamed until his voice went hoarse and gave out on him entirely. Then all he could do was whimper as lash upon lash continue to fall against the naked skin of his back, butt, and legs, tearing apart his flesh with each blow that fell. Blood poured in tiny rivulets down his back, snaking around his kin, and splashing against the concrete floor.

His lungs seized up when the man finally stopped, his breath leaving him. He panted for just a tiny bit of air to squeeze past his constricted airways into his heaving chest as his body shook with the pain consuming every inch of his body. 

He thought he knew agony before. But this?

This was Hell.

His captor fisted his hands in his hair again, forcing him to look into the man's mangled face.

"Your dirty little  _spic_ is trapped in  _my_ maze. Come to save you, I guess.  How sweet," he mocked, his eyes raking in disgust over Kellin's still naked body. "What's he going to think when he sees what  I've done to your body? Do you really think he'll still love you?" 

The man released his hair with a shove of his head. His chest constricted further, a sob catching in the back of his throat. _He's lying,_ he told himself.  _Vic's not here, he's lying. Vic_ couldn't  _be here. He just couldn't._

Black spots danced along the edges of his vision like the flicker of a fire as he struggled to keep his sobs trapped in his chest. His knees felt weak, body heavy. He sagged against the chain holding him captive.

Like water poured over a fire, his vision quivered and went up in smoke.  


	6. Chapter 6

**_Day 9_ **

Vic had been bullied a lot in high school for being _weird_ , for being short and weak, for liking music more than he liked sports, for ‘looking gay’ whatever the Hell that meant.  The bullying had gotten so severe he’d been afraid to go to school, afraid to walk down the hallways out of sight of any of the teachers, afraid to go to the bathroom alone, afraid to breath too loudly and draw attention to himself. Just walking through the doors in the morning made the ball of anxiety flare to life in his stomach, like a pit of lava lying dormant under a volcano. Every time he saw his tormentors -  a bunch of nobodies even then, just another handful of troubled kids in a school full of them - Vic felt that ball of anxiety erupt, spreading through veins from his fingers to this toes. His hands would go numb, his knees would feel weak, and his legs would shake against his will. His heart would beat so fast sometimes it felt like he couldn’t breathe at all.

He kind of felt like that now.

“We’re fucked,” Jaime said, tearing at his hair. “Unless anyone happens to know how to pick a lock? Yes? No?”

Vic clenched his hands around the strap of his messenger bag to hide how bad they were shaking. He took a deep breath like the therapist his mother took him to after she caught him cutting taught him. He was overreacting, that’s all. The exhaustion, lack of food, and worry for their friends were weighing on all of them,  making them panic when there was no reason to yet.

“Calm down,” Vic said, evenly controlling his breathing. “We’re not fucked. We’re just really tired and overreacting. We need to keep cool and think logically about this.”

“Vic’s right,” Tony said, placing a hand on Jaime’s tense shoulder and squeezing. “Most of these keys are too big or too small for that lock. We just need to narrow it down.”

“That’s still a lot of keys,” Jaime pointed out.

Tony ran the flashlight slowly over the keys again, chewing his lip absentmindedly. The flashlight glinted off Jaime’s face, illuminating his worry. Even narrowing it down, it could take hours to go through all the possibilities. Vic felt the pit of anxiety roar to life, threatening to spill over the precipice again.

But he squashed it down. They’d figure it out. They had to.

“Maybe Kellin marked the right key with his magic sharpie?” Jaime said with a hint of hope in his voice.

“Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter,” Tony said. “Any mark he may have made is probably long gone.”

“Why do you say that?” Jaime asked

“Look around the room,” Tony said, shining the flashlight across the floor to the locked door. “There’s not a single key on the ground. Someone put all these keys back on the wall, and I seriously doubt it was the guys. They wouldn’t take the time to put each key back after trying it. Plus, someone had to put the lock back on the door. I don’t think our captor is going to leave a key with an X on it for us to find.”

No one stated the obvious: that maybe Kellin and the rest of SWS never even made it to this room let alone through it. They each kept their horrific thoughts to themselves, or couldn’t fathom it at all.

“Let’s worry about it when we wake up,” Mike mumbled. He had already lied down on the floor opposite of the keys, eyes closed, and head pillowed on his arm. “We’ll be able to figure it out better after we refresh our brains.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Jaime said, gracelessly plopping to the floor. “Snuggle buddy?” he asked, looking up pleadingly at Tony. Tony rolled his eyes, but lied down close enough that his side was pressed to Jaime’s. Immediately, Jaime rolled over and snuggled into Tony’s side. “For warmth,” he insisted.

Mike cracked one eye open, eyeing Tony and Jaime critically before he scooted closer to them and snuggled into Tony’s other side. Tony laughed at him, but let Mike use his shoulder as a pillow. Tony looked like a father with his two kids scared of the thunder and huddling close for comfort. Vic contemplated turning his cellphone on to take a picture, but decided against it.

He wanted no memories of this place.

Vic turned back to wall of keys. Not wanting to disturb Tony by asking for the flashlight, he used the light on his cellphone to illuminate them. As he inspected the area, he noted Kellin _had_ left clues. Various clusters of keys were circled in sharpie with notes such as ‘too large’ or ‘too small’ or ‘not the right shape’ written in Kellin’s neat cursive handwriting. However, whoever put the keys back had either randomly put the keys back or intentionally messed them up making Kellin’s notes mostly useless.

But not all.

The largest section on the bottom labelled ‘too large’ were obviously old, antiquated keys meant for Victorian era doors, and would never fit in a modern lock like the one holding them prisoner in this room. 

He heard shuffling noises, and glanced back at his friends as Jaime threw an arm around Tony, knocking into Mike’s side in the process.

“Stop moving, you little shit,” Tony murmured.

“Sleep,” Mike demanded, flicking Jaime in the ear.

“Ow,” Jaime groaned, but obeyed.

The three of them settled once more. Until Mike cracked an eye open.

“Go to bed, Vic. It can wait,” his brother mumbled.

 _It can’t wait,_ he thought, though he knew it would have to. No matter what kind of torture Kellin may be going through at this very moment, he couldn’t rescue his boyfriend if he dropped from exhaustion first. He turned back towards the wall so his brother wouldn’t see the expression on his face. “Just a sec,” he said, his voice cracking.

No one called him out on it.

He stayed awake just a little while longer, systematically narrowing down the keys in his mind until he could no longer force his eyes to remain open. Only then did he finally lie down next to Jaime and pass out the second his head hit the floor.

-

Vic woke to the sound of feverish whispering, a painful crick in his neck, and Jaime’s arm thrown around his waist, the bassist’s body curled around his back.

“Vic would know better than we would,” he heard Tony argue presumably to Mike. “It’s his boyfriend.”

“We should let him sleep,” Mike argued. “He stayed up longer than we did.”

“I’m up,” Vic groggily insisted, shoving Jaime’s arm off of him. Jaime groaned in protest, but pried his eyes open. “What would I know better?” he asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and forcing himself into a sitting position.

“Well, we ruled out these keys here on the bottom because they’re too old and too big to fit the lock, but I happened to notice something strange above a couple of them. So we took them all down, and well come look,” Mike said pointing to a section of the wall near the floor. “It looks like Kellin wrote a poem or something, but it doesn’t really make any sense.”

“We think it’s a clue,” Tony said.

Vic dragged himself over to the wall and sat cross legged in front of Kellin’s supposed poem.

_“The key to my heart is short and squat_

_His hair shines golden in the sun_

_His love for me is three mountains stacked high_

_With no tunnels to let fear leak through.”_

“Either your boyfriend is incredibly gay and terrible at poetry,” Mike said, to which Vic glared at him, “or that’s a clue.”

“That’s definitely Kellin’s handwriting,” Vic confirmed having seen Kellin’s scribbled lyrics filling notebooks, napkins, the back of bills, any paper really that came within reach when inspiration struck scattered across their shared house for years. He could recognize Kellin’s handwriting anywhere. “And it’s definitely a clue.” Kellin better never call him ‘short and squat.’

“Go Kellin,” Jaime tiredly cheered. From his position still lying on the floor, he fist bumped the air. “What do you think it means?”

“We think we figured out the first two,” Mike said. “We think Kellin’s trying to tell us the key is small and gold in color.”

“Those are pretty obvious,” Tony added. “It’s the last two we’re not sure about. What do you think, Vic? You know Kellin better than any of us.”

“Not sure yet,” Vic distractedly said, letting his eyes roam over the keys. Without sleep dragging his eyes down and with the help of Tony’s flashlight, they were much easier to see.  Some of the older keys had two or three prongs and were meant as nothing more as a distraction, while the newer standard ones held various ridges of differing shapes and …

“Wait,” Vic said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Tony without looking away from the keys. “What’s another word for mountains?”

“Uh, hilltop,” Jaime said.

“Peaks,” Mike said.

Tony glanced knowingly at Vic, and said, “Ridges.” 

“Exactly. Kellin’s telling us the key only has three ridges.”

“That narrows it down significantly,” Mike said. “And the last one. No tunnels?”

Vic felt Jaime’s presence along his back as the other man leaned over him. He plucked a key from the wall and held it up for them to see. “You know how most keys come standard with a hole cut in the top to place a lanyard or a ring through it? I think Kellin’s trying to say the key to the door doesn’t have one of those,” Jaime said, tossing the key in his hand over his shoulder as it clearly didn’t match Kellin’s description.

“So a small golden key that only has three ridges and no hole for a key ring. There can’t be too many of those matching that description,” Mike said.

“Probably not,” Vic said, though he didn’t want to get his hopes up too high just yet. “Why don’t we each pick a corner and work our way to the middle.”

“Should we make a little pile of keys and take them over at the same time, or take them over as we find them?”

“Up to you, Hime-Time,” Vic said.

“I think I’ll  make a pile, cuz then I’ll just lose my place and have to start all over again,” Jaime pondered out loud.

“Why don’t you start at one of the bottom corners since you’re ‘short and squat,’” Mike teased Vic, nudging Tony in the ribs who just shook his head at him. Since he was sitting on the floor still, Vic punched his brother in the nuts for that. He may be short, but he certainly wasn’t squat.  

Tony and Jaime laughed at him as Mike groaned and doubled over. “Jesus, I was just kidding, you turd bucket,” he mumbled. 

It was a grueling process going through each key individually, kind of like playing a game of Where’s Waldo,’ fingers brushing over each key trying to find the exact one that would free them.  But by the end they only had 12 keys to try.

They were so focused on the wall, however, not one of them noticed a very important fact, one crucial to their survival.

“Is it just me or is that wall moving and this room getting smaller?”

“It’s not just you, Hime-Time,” Vic said, scooping up the keys and running for the locked door.

“Okay. Don’t panic. We have time, right? There’s only  12 keys, and we can still escape out the other door if we need to,” Jaime said, but just as the words left his mouth, the other door slammed shut. There was no handle on the inside of that door. No escape.

They were trapped.

With shaky hands, Vic jammed the first key into the lock and twisted.

Nothing happened.

Hastily, he threw the key on the floor, taking the next one from Tony’s hand and jabbing it into the lock. He missed the hole the first time, cursed himself out (they didn’t have time for Vic to make mistakes) and tried again. Still nothing happened.

“Shit,” he said, throwing the key away, and taking the next one from Mike’s hand.

Unlike the movies, like Indiana Jones or Star Wars, the walls weren’t moving slowly. Quickly, the solid wall of concrete descended on them as Vic jammed the third key into the lock and twisted. Still, the lock remained stubbornly closed.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he said, tossing the key over his shoulder, and taking the next one.

“Uh, I hate to tell you to hurry, but uh, please hurry,” Jaime begged, as Vic rammed the fourth key into the lock with no success.

All four of them were huddled around the lock, Jaime just behind Vic to the right. The wall now stood so close Jaime could touch it without stretching out his arms. “I’m going as quick as I can,” Vic said, shoving the fifth key in the lock. He begged the universe to let this be the key, but still nothing happened.

 _Oh God,_ he thought. It was his fault they were down here. His fault his friends and brother were suffering. His fault they were about to be crushed to death.

But they couldn’t die here. They _could not_. They were the only hope SWS had, and Vic refused to be responsible for not only their deaths, but the deaths of his brother and best friends as well.

“I really hope we didn’t misinterpret Kellin’s little poem there.”

“You’re really not helping here,” Vic said, plunging the next key into the lock just as the wall touched Jaime’s shoulder, squishing him against Mike.

With a twist of his wrist, the lock _clicked_ and sprang open. Vic yanked the door open, shoving Mike and Tony through first, Jaime following hot on his heels as he flew out the door.

They watched in horror as the concrete wall continued to press forward, each of them jumping back in surprise when the two walls collided with a thunderous _boom._

“Holy shit,” Jaime said, running a shaky hand through his hair. “That was ….”

“Terrifying.”

“Pants-shitting.”

“I was going to say close, but those work, too.”

 _How many people have died in that room?_ Vic wondered, his heart still thrashing against his ribcage. _Kellin was not one of them,_ he tried to tell his wildly beating heart. Kellin found the key, he must have if he left the clue. He had to have escaped.

He jumped when a hand settled on his shoulder, and looked up into the worried eyes of his younger brother. He startled again when with a _crunch_ and a squeal of metal, the two walls broke apart again. “Let’s rest here for a moment, and then keep going,” Mike suggested.

Not trusting his voice just yet, Vic nodded.

He shoved the door shut, hiding the horrors behind it.

*

**_Day 9_ **

His shoulder smashed into the concrete wall as their captor shoved him into the small prison cell, not even bothering to lock him back up before the door slammed shut behind him. Jack slid down the wall, clutching at his shoulder as pain shot up from his broken wrist. He grit his teeth as the agony crested and receded to an angry throb, like waves in the ocean. He slumped against the wall, gasping as the fresh bruises on his back hit the concrete. He tried to flex the hand of his broken arm, but his stiff fingers hardly moved. He could barely feel his hand at all anymore. Jack was no doctor, but he knew that wasn’t a good sign.

“Do you want me to rewrap your wrist?” Nick asked, his voice a whisper in the silent room.

“Do we have to?” Jack huffed, gently lowering his wrist to his lap.

He expected a ‘hell yes,’ or a ‘get your ass over here, Fowler.’ Instead, Nick looked away and said, “No.”

Jack hadn’t shed a single tear since they’d woken up in this demented prison, but as he studied Nick – the defeated posture and the averted eyes  - in that moment he felt his eyes water. “Nick,” he said, and then shook his head, casting away his worries. “Do you think it would help?” he asked instead.

“I don’t know,” Nick said.

Jack felt his chest clench. “Do you think you can do it with just one arm?” he asked.

Nick had come back to their cell with a dislocated shoulder that he acquired by contorting his body to avoid falling on a bed of sharp glass and nails. Their captor apparently had been so pissed off at Nick for foiling his plan that he instead kicked Nick repeatedly in the chest. But even that had not dampened Nick’s determination, nor his fire and will to escape.

When Kellin fell silent, though, Nick changed.

They all did.

The reality that they could really die here had finally sunk in, digging in deep like the bite of a dog when they stopped hearing anything at all from Kellin.

Jack wanted to believe Kellin was still alive. But his screams had gone on very for a long time, growing progressively weaker and hoarser, until abruptly cutting off. Whatever had happened left their captor so pissed, he stormed into Justin and Gabe’s prison cell shortly after Kellin fell silent. He punched Justin in the face, uncuffed him, and dragged him from the cell by a hand wrapped around his throat.

Justin never stood a chance.

His screams, following so closely on those of Kellin’s, nearly broke all of them.

Their captor dragged Justin back, beaten and bruised, and with the fingernails now missing entirely on his left hand, as well. But …

At least they knew he was alive. At least they knew, though shaken and worse for wear, Justin would be okay for the time being.

They kept waiting to hear something, _anything_ to prove Kellin still lived. Even his screams would be preferable to the silence at this point.

But there was nothing.

Just the drip from the leaky faucet, and the occasional shuffle and whisper from the rest of his band.

When their captor came for him and they still hadn’t heard anything from Kellin, Jack knew the chance that Kellin might be … dead … had just increased dramatically.

Nick knew it, too.  And he just … lost it, lost the confident set of his shoulders, and the steady gaze of his eyes. He wilted like plastic in a fire.

And Jack felt his own resolve melting away with Nick’s.

Painfully, Jack shuffled over towards Nick and held out his arm, hoping to see some spark still there, something to tell Jack Nick hadn’t given up.

But there was nothing.

Just two wet eyes and a heavy sigh.

Still, with help from Jack, Nick unwrapped the bandaging around his arm, realigned the makeshift sticks (and hopefully his bones) to which Jack swallowed his scream, and rewrapped the offending appendage with medical tape that had been in his vest pocket when they’d been knocked out.

“You don’t think Kellin’s …?” Jack asked, swallowing thickly as Nick finished wrapping his arm. He didn’t want to tell Nick that his arm didn’t feel better nor that he still couldn't really feel his fingers.

“I don’t know,” Nick sighed, as Jack shuffled back towards the other side of their cell, slowly leaning his back against the wall. “It’s my fault,” Nick said suddenly, startling Jack. Nick lurched forward, pressing the fingers of his good hand into his eyes. “If I had been paying more attention we could have escaped by now.”

“You don’t know that,” Jack tried to reassure, tiredly wiping his dirty face with the sleeve of his shirt. They didn’t even know if the gas masks would work, let alone whether just two of them could event take down their captor successfully.

Nick scoffed. He turned his head away to stare at their prison door and fell silent.

Jack watched him, saw the way his breath hitched, his lips pressed thin.

“I promised him we would get out of here alive,” Nick said, the words whispered across the silence between them. “I promised him he’d see Vic again. And I believed it,” Nick said, tears in his eyes as he glanced up from his hard stare at the door to meet Jack’s eyes, before turning to glare at the floor. “He didn’t believe me. But I did then, and now … Now I just don’t know.”

Jack felt the tears in his own eyes threaten to spill, but he forced them not to fall. “Don’t do this, Nick,” Jack said, voice thick and so soft it barely traveled across the tiny cell. “You’re the only thing keeping us together right now. You’re the only thing giving any of us hope. We can’t lose that. We can’t lose you.”

He saw the tears roll down Nicks’ face. If Nick lost faith, what else did they have to believe in? What else did they have to get them through this?

If they didn’t have  Nick holding them together then …

Then they had nothing at all.

“Until proven otherwise,” Jack said, swallowing the sob that wanted to escape, “we just have to believe Kellin is still alive. We have to hold on to that hope until we know for sure. Please, Nick, you can’t give up yet.”

Nick met his eyes again, but this time he didn’t look away. Something settled in his face, and he scrubbed away the tears. “Okay,” he said, nodding shakily. “Okay.”  


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap! This chapter makes three posted in two weeks. That is like … a record for me. I totally messed up my timeline a little, though, so this chapter is a little short and light on plot as a result. But I think I fixed the timeline issue I was having with my outline for the rest of the chapters and I actually think we’re pretty close to the end. So all I can say is the next few chapters or so are going to be quite long and have a lot going on. I will try to have the next chapter up before I go on vacation next Thursday, but I make no promises.

  ** _Day 9_**

“So Bigfoot: real, not real, or an alien?” Jaime asked, face pressed into the blueprints as he pointed them left when the hallway came to an end.

He knew what Jaime was trying to do: distract them from the weight of their pressing thoughts. Despite the fact they had survived the last room of horrors unscathed, they were all still shaken up over what had happened.

But Vic could not be distracted. Thoughts of Kellin and their predicament plagued him.

What if the next room held something they couldn’t overcome? What if there was no hint from Kellin, no little piece of him that let Vic know at least his boyfriend had made it that far?

He staggered, and came to a stop, bringing his hand up to rest on the cool, damp wall.

What if … What if he found Kellin’s body?

 _No._ Kellin still lived. He knew it. It had to be true. He couldn’t believe otherwise.

“Are you okay?” his brother whispered to him. Vic jumped, not realizing Mike had stopped next to him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, shrugging off his brother’s concern and moving forward again. He tried very hard to ignore Mike’s concerned look and concentrated very hard on Jaime and Tony’s argument over Bigfoot instead.

“Not real,” Vic heard Tony say to Jaime. “There is no way that an 8-foot undiscovered species exists on this planet.”

“What about all the sightings from people?” Jaime argued.

“It’s just people who have an overactive imagination that - since Bigfoot is such a common, well-known myth - people transcribe the shadow, or person, or bear they’re actually seeing as a stupid, mythological creature,” Tony argued.

“Wow, you’re really adamant there’s no such thing as Bigfoot,” Jaime said.

“Yes. There are three things in this world you will never be able to convince me of no matter what argument you make. One, that Republicans and the people who vote them are good people. Two, that the people who vote for Republicans are intelligent. And three, that Bigfoot exists.”

“Maybe Bigfoot isn’t an undiscovered Earth species, but a race of aliens that visit Earth just to fuck with us,” Jaime argued.

“Then there would be a correlation between UFO sightings and Bigfoot sightings, and so far I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Tony said.

“Wow,” Jaime said. “Sometimes I forget you’re actually kind of smart sometimes.”

“In relation to you, everyone’s a genius,” Tony said, playfully shoving Jaime to let him know he was only kidding.

“Ouch, that cuts deep, Turtle, real deep,” Jaime said, poking Tony in the ribs and making him squirm. Only they knew just how ticklish Tony really was.

“Stop that,” Tony said, smacking away Jaime’s hand.

“What do you think, Mike?” Jaime asked.

“About Bigfoot?” Mike asked, jogging up to the other two and throwing an arm around both their shoulders. “Gonna have to agree with Tony on this one here.”

“You two are no fun,” Jaime pouted, pointing them left down the next hallway. “Vic, help me out here.”

“Uh,” Vic said. He knew Jaime was only trying to cheer him up and take his brain, for just a moment, away from this place. And for a second, it had worked. He had been distracted by their banter. But he couldn’t muster up the energy to reply, to let his mind ponder on any other topic than their current predicament and the fate of his boyfriend and friends.

“Oh shit,” Jaime said, saving Vic from having to answer as they hit the end of the tunnel.

“What is it? Did we hit a dead end?” Vic asked, catching up with the other three.

“No. It’s the next room,” Jaime said, his voice quivering a bit.

“Oh,” Vic quietly said, sliding between Mike and Tony’s body – sometimes being short paid off – to see the next iron door, exactly the same as the other two, blocking their path.

“Already?” Mike asked, gripping both of Vic’s shoulders and squeezing tightly.

Vic patted his brother’s hands in reassurance, though he felt anything but calm, and gripped the handle. “You guys ready?”

“Doesn’t matter if we are or not,” Tony said. “We don’t really have a choice.”

The little voice in the back of his head, the one he’d been trying to ignore since they woke down in this Hell hole roared to life, screaming at him that if anything happened to his friends, to his brother, it would be his fault. But he swallowed the guilt. They wanted to save their friends almost as much as he did, and Vic didn’t force them to come with him.

He could never express just how grateful he was, though, that they did.

With that thought, Vic twisted the handle and pushed the heavy door open.

Tony shone the flashlight into the room. The small, dark space immediately illuminated brighter than the others as the light bounced off what appeared to be mirrors hung on the wall. Each mirror, decorated in a carved, ornate frame with dark tarnish, covered the wall from ceiling to floor and were twice as thick as Jaime. With several inches of space between them, the mirrors carpeted the entire room, except for the door they stood at and the door to exit. Unlike the last two rooms, the door to their exit stood on the wall to their right instead of opposite of them, and it wasn’t an old, rusted iron door, but a sleek,  metallic door like one seen blocking the exit to the psychiatric ward in a hospital or a prison. And the ceiling was incredibly low, just comfortable enough for Vic, Tony, and Jaime to enter, but Mike had to hunch over slightly to fit. 

Careful of his steps, Vic stepped forward with Tony on his left, his brother at his back with a hand on his shoulder, and Jaime behind Tony, a hand fisted in the back of both Vic’s and Tony’s shirts. He couldn’t decide if it was comforting for Jaime, or if Jaime thought he could protect them that way.

Tony pulled away, shining the flashlight across the room as he cautiously stepped towards the door. “There’s no handle,” he said, running the flashlight around the edges of the steel door. Tony touched the tips of his fingers to the door, the muscles in his arm taught and ready to pull away if needed. When nothing happened, he rested his palm against the door and pushed.

The door remained stubbornly closed.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” Jaime said. 

“Doesn’t hurt to try,” Tony said.

“It could have,” Jaime said, crossing his arms and leaning his weight against one of the mirrors. It creaked and shifted, but remained steady, holding Jaime's weight. “So what’s the catch? What do we have to do now?”

Tony shrugged. Absentmindedly, he began chewing on his nails, immediately pulling his hand away with a grimace when he realized how dirty his hands were. He grabbed a water bottle from his pack, and walked away from the door so he could rinse his mouth and spit the dirty water out away from them. He handed Mike the flashlight as he passed.

Mike ran the flashlight over every inch of the door exactly as Tony had done. Finding nothing new, he scrunched up his face in concentration and rested his knuckles against the sliver of wall visible to the left of the door. Instead of meeting solid concrete, his fist sunk into the wall. Jaime and Mike both jerked away from the wall as a  _click_ resounded through the room. Mike threw up both his arms in front of him and Jaime, the flashlight falling to the floor, and backed away from the door, forcing both of them to back away with him.

The room plunged into darkness, except a small sliver of light emanating from the flashlight illuminating the bottom of the door. For a moment, all they heard in the darkness of the room was their own heavy breathing.

“What-what happened?” Jaime broke the silence, reaching out and clutching the back of Mike’s shirt.

“I don’t know,” Mike said, scooping up the flashlight and walking back over to the door, taking Jaime with him who refused to let go of his shirt. “Wait, what’s this?”

Mike shone the flashlight around the door again. Where Mike’s fist had touched the wall, a concrete block had sunk into the wall, and below a panel had popped open revealing a 4-combination lock.

“Is that what I think it is?” Jaime asked, pointing at the lock over Mike’s shoulder. “It can’t be that hard to crack, right?” Jaime nervously chuckled. “I mean, there’s only ... Actually, I don’t know how many possible combinations that is. I’m not very good at math.”

“Nine times nine times nine times nine,” Tony said, peering at the combination lock around Mike’s shoulder.

“Okay, that’s a lot,” Jaime said.

“We’ll have to try one combination at a time,” Vic said. The pit of anxiety in his stomach felt like solid rock at the moment, sinking lower and lower. He felt tears of frustration spring to his eyes, but he forced them away.

“Vic, why don’t you start,” Mike said. “While I use the crowbar to try and pry the door open. You two can rest for now, and we’ll switch places when we get bored or tired.”

“Sounds like an excellent plan, Michael Christopher Fuentes,” Jaime said, walking to the opposite side of the room and sliding down the wall with a groan. Tony pulled the crowbar from his bag and handed it over to Mike, before joining Jaime. Tony didn’t even protest when Jaime rested his head on his shoulder the second his butt hit the floor.

Vic felt a tear force it’s way free and fall down his cheek.

“Vic …”

He shook his head 'no' at his brother, not trusting his own voice.

Mike didn’t say it’ll be okay. He didn’t say we’ll get out of this. He didn’t say we’ll find Kellin alive.

Because at this point, none of that seemed true.

*

_**Day 9** _

“You okay?” Justin asked.

Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside of Gabe.

“Yeah, stupid question. Sorry,” Justin said, drawing his knees to his chest, and wrapping his free arm around them. “At least it’s kind of warm in here, so you won’t get hypothermia.”

“You can get hypothermia in 96 degree water if you’re in it long enough,” Gabe tonelessly said. At Justin’s horrified expression, he added, “But as long as I dry off fairly quickly I should be fine.” He tried to smile reassuringly for Justin, but his face twisted into more of a grimace as he shook out his wet hair. His pants, at least, had remained mostly dry as their captor repeatedly held his head under water, but his shirt was completely soaked, mostly as a result of his own struggles.

Justin remained silent. There wasn’t much to say. It felt pointless to talk about whatever sprang to mind. Nothing felt right anymore since ...

Since Kellin fell silent.

“Kellin’s still alive, right?” Justin suddenly asked in a small voice just when the silence started to crush both of them.

Kellin was one of their best friends. They’d known him since high school. They still joked about how Kellin literally forced his way into their lives, wriggled right in like a worm, latched on like a leech, and never let go. They’re both glad he did, though.

Even the thought of him being gone was unfathomable, too painful to even let skirt on the edges of his mind. 

But they hadn’t heard anything from him in a very long time, and their captor seemed pissed about something. Whatever had happened to Kellin, Gabe knew their captor had definitely gone too far, that much was obvious from the way Kellin’s screams seemed to go on forever, too long for Gabe, before disintegrating into nothing. But had he accidentally killed Kellin in a rage? Or would he still be waiting for them if they got their chance to escape? “I … I don’t know,” he answered Justin with a shake of his head.

Justin seemed to brush his answer off, like Gabe hadn't even replied. But he couldn’t blame him. Neither one of them wanted to believe Kellin could actually be gone.

“If we do get the chance to escape, how do you want to do it?” Justin asked instead, glancing at the makeshift gas masks they had managed to smuggle into their prison cell, and kept hidden behind the bucket provided to them. Their captor’s immense anger, though the catalyst that brought about both of their bitter beatings and possibly the death of their friend, had also blinded their captor to the existence of the gas masks, and therefore kept their little plan a secret.

“If we get the chance to escape, it’ll probably be if he takes us back to that room Kellin’s in. We should wait until we get into the room and attack before he has a chance to chain us to the wall. Just like what Nick said, if he’s facing you, I’ll attack from behind and vice versa,” Gabe said like it was so simple. He knew it was anything but, though. There would be two of them yes, but they were both heavily injured and facing the worst kind of evil: the kind of man who felt no fear.

“Do you know the first thing about fighting?” Justin asked with a smirk and a huff of bitter laughter.

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Let’s ask Nick. He’s a well of useful knowledge. Nick!”

It was silent for a moment, before Nick yelled back with a hoarse voice. “Yeah?”

Gabe paused. He knew he needed to pick his words carefully in case their captor overheard them. He didn’t want to tip the fat bastard off to their plans.

“Justin thinks he could take Dwayne the Rock Johnson on in a fight. I think he’s full of shit. What do you think?” he asked, hoping Nick got what he was trying to ask.

“I’d say he’d get his ass handed to him,” Nick said, crushing Gabe’s hope. “Unless, he managed to get a lucky shot in to the nose, neck, solar plexus, or crotch.”

“See, told you I could do it,” Justin yelled, playing along. “Thanks, Nick.”

“What the fuck is the solar plexus?” Gabe asked.

Justin shrugged. “No clue,” he said, his gaze falling back to the floor.

Gabe shivered in the cool, damp air of the prison cell. He pulled his knees to his chest, trying to conserve body heat and keep as warm as possible with his dripping wet shirt. He felt his eyes slip shut, his body feeling heavier and heavier, relaxing into the embrace of the Sandman.

 “What do you think Kellin did to piss him off?” Justin suddenly asked. Thankfully, Gabe jerked awake. It probably wasn’t a good idea to fall asleep just now.

He might never wake up if he did.

“It wouldn’t have been something stupid,” Gabe said after a moment of thought, standing to his feet and pacing the little cell as far as the chain would allow to keep warm and awake. “It was probably about love or faith, the two most important things to Kellin, but the two things our captor could never understand.”  

“Yeah,” Justin said, chewing his lip thoughtfully. “We’ll ask him when we see him again,” Justin said with such conviction it startled Gabe.

Before he could reply, a plate of metal started sliding over the bars of their prison door, much like it had done before. He jumped as the loud squeal of metal against metal startled him. “I guess we’re going to find out right now,” he said, as Justin turned wide eyes towards him. “Quick, hand me one of the gas masks.”

Quickly, Justin scrambled for the hidden masks, and clumsily threw one in his direction. As the gas started pouring into the room, Gabe slumped to the floor and pressed the mask to his face, trying to control his quick breaths as much as possible.

He met Justin’s terrified eyes. Gabe wanted to offer reassurance, to promise they could do this, that everything would be okay, that they would find Kellin alive and not his body.

But he couldn’t make such a foolish promise.

A loud _crash_ outside their cell door startled them. A heavy door slammed against the wall.

 _It worked,_ Gabe thought. _Oh God … the gas masks actually worked._

They heard the footsteps of their captor echoing down the halls. This, Gabe knew …

This was it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the warnings in the tags above definitely and especially apply to this chapter. And this chapter is definitely rated M.

**_Day 9_ **

_4 1 1 1_

_4 1 1 2_

_4 1 1 3_

_4 1 1 4_

_4 1 1 5_

Vic rubbed his dry, tired eyes as he pressed in the next combination. He had performed some mind numbingly tedious tasks before, but this one by far took the cake. He had been at this for what felt like hours already, and from Mike’s groan of pain and heavy sigh as he once more unsuccessfully tried to pry the door open, it probably had been hours.

_4 1 1 6_

_4 1 1 7_

His brother rested the crowbar on the ground, and leaned against the wall. “My arms hurt, and I’m exhausted. I think I’m going to wake up Jaime and Tony and take a break soon.”

“Okay,” Vic said, typing in the next possible combination.

_4 1 1 8_

_4 1 1 9_

_4 2 1 1_

“Hey,” Mike softly said, placing his hand on Vic’s shoulder and forcing him to turn so they were facing each other.  “How you holding up?”

“Don’t worry about me, Mike,” Vic said, forcing his lips to form some sort of resemblance of a reassuring smile. It apparently fell flat, because Mike frowned in worry over him.

Mike paused, chewing on his lower lip as he held Vic in place. “Remember that time when I was 5, and you were 7, and you, me and Nick got lost in the woods?” Mike said, surprising him.

How could Vic forget? Nick had the bright idea to go exploring in the woods without their parents when they were camping, somehow convincing his naïve cousins to accompany him, and had promptly gotten them all lost. Vic had very nearly lost his shit. But even at the tender age of 8, Nick had remained calm and collected. He left an easy to follow trail for rescue searchers to follow. It turned out he hadn’t needed to, though, because almost 24 hours after Nick had gotten them lost in the forest, he led them out of it. Of course, it was nowhere near where they’d entered the forest, but Nick had managed to find a road, and they were easily spotted by a pair of volunteers who were actually heading to the park to look for them. “Yeah,” Vic said, clearing his voice because of how hoarse it sounded. “Nick’s something else.”

“He is,” Mike easily agreed. “He’s smart, resourceful, and stubborn. All of them are. Every single one of them, they’re fighters. And most importantly, you know they’ve got each other’s back no matter what. They wouldn’t leave anyone behind.”

“I know,” Vic said, and meant it. When Vic and Kellin first started dating, he’d been a tiny bit jealous of Gabe and Justin’s relationship with Kellin, though he’d never admit to that. The three of them were extremely close and extremely protective of each other. Vic knew that they – Jack and Nick included – would rather die than leave any of the others behind.

“I can’t promise you that Kellin is okay, and I can’t promise you we’ll find them, but if anyone besides us can make it through this, it’s them,” Mike said, squeezing his shoulder comfortingly.

He knew his brother was trying his hardest to find that one tiny spark of hope, but his reassurances felt as flat as they were.

He knew Kellin wouldn’t be okay when they found him. It wasn’t his gut, or instinct that told him so, but pure logic. He could handle beaten and broken, though. He could handle traumatized and terrified.

But he’s not sure he can handle it if they find Kellin dead or not at all.

“I can’t lose him,” Vic said, rubbing his face to hide the sob.

“I … I don’t want to be the one to say this, but … Have you thought about what would happen if we do, you know? Are you prepared if we don’t find him?”

“You can’t prepare yourself for something like that, Mike,” Vic softly said, shaking his head and looking away from his brother's worried eyes. “Even if you know for sure it’s going to happen.”

“Then we just have to hold on to hope that we will find them, all of them, alive,” Mike said, pulling Vic into a hug. “And I’ll be here for you no matter what happens,” Mike said. Returning the hug, Vic nodded against his brother's chest. He knew that, he knew he’d always have Mike. But …

What if that wasn’t enough?

 “Are you guys hugging without us?” Jaime asked in mock hurt, startling them.

“Says the person practically spooning Tony,” Mike retorted. He let Vic go, but kept a steadying hand on his arm.

“I’m a cuddler, you know this,” Jaime said.

“Uh-huh, sure,” Mike said. “My arms are fucking tired, why don’t you guys take over for a bit. Which one of you wants the crowbar?”

“Rock, paper, scissors for who gets to _not_ take the crowbar?” Jaime asked, looking pleadingly at Tony.

Tony rolled his eyes, but complied, easily beating the other man. Jaime had yet to figure out that he almost always picked rock, and everyone knew it, but him. Vic almost felt bad for him, but refused to actually tell Jaime because it came in handy a lot.

“We can switch when you get tired of it,” Tony reassured when Jaime pouted.

“Yay,” Jaime said, springing off the floor like a jumping bean, and grabbing the crowbar from Mike as Vic gave Tony a quick rundown on all the combinations he tried.

He lied down on the cold floor next to his brother. Though his thoughts were troubled, with Mike’s warmth at his back and his messenger bag as a pillow, Vic easily fell asleep.

-

His dreams were plagued with nightmares of finding Kellin. Sometimes he’d find him bloody and beaten, but still alive, only to watch Kellin die in his arms. Other times his body would be cold when he found it, his blue-green eyes staring lifelessly at Vic. But the worst were the ones where he would be unable to reach Kellin. No matter how fast he ran, Kellin’s body would stretch further and further and further away from his.

He woke from his nightmares with a gasp, and a vague sick feeling, like an ache in his bones and his gut. Mike still lay fast asleep next to him, but Vic knew sleep would welcome him no further.

Jaime had the crowbar in hand, grunting with exertion as he tried to pry the door open, Tony swaying slightly on his feet as he tried combination after combination, both talking in hushed tones together. Vic knew he would only get in the way if he went over to them, so he wondered the room instead.

For the first time since they entered this room, Vic looked at his reflection in one of the mirrors. His clothes and exposed skin held splotches of dirt, his hair a tangled mess. His skin had lost some of its normal tan color, fading almost to the color of faded, yellow paper. His eyes were sunken in, and the circles around them so big they looked bruised.

He tore his eyes away from his own reflection.

He trailed past each mirror as he paced the room, letting his fingers trail along the ornate wooden frames around the mirrors, each delicately carved.

Vic paced the room several times, taking in every detail of the mirrors.

Maybe it was fate or destiny, or maybe it was the universe sending them a message, but on his third time around the room, Jaime asked for the flashlight from Tony, and as his tired hands fumbled with the device, the light flashing around the room, it glinted off of something strange on the wall between the two mirrors Vic stood before.

Not wanting to alert the others just yet, he took out his cellphone and used the light to illuminate the wall. He felt a little light headed as his cellphone proved what he thought he saw: sharpie on the wall. To be more exact, it looked like half of a tiny body drawn on the wall.  He pushed the mirror aside, grunting with exertion at how heavy it was, and held it away from the wall with his body. Sure enough, behind the mirror drawn on the wall were two tiny chibis, the one with the snapback labeled Vic and the other labelled Kelin. The two figures were holding hands with a heart drawn between them.

But that wasn’t what caught his attention the most. “No fucking way …”

“What? What is it?” Jaime said, instantly alert as he rushed over to him, Tony close behind him.

“There’s a door behind this mirror,” Vic said.

“That sneaky son of a bitch,” Jaime said.

The plain wooden door behind the mirror held a recessed pull instead of a doorknob. Vic tapped the recessed pull several times before cautiously pulling the door open a few inches revealing only darkness. Jaime shone the flashlight through the small crack, illuminating a new tunnel.

“Kellin comes through for us again,” Jaime said, offering a high five, which no one took. “But man is your boyfriend gay.”

Vic shot him a glare, and punched him in the arm. “It’d be weird if he wasn’t.”

"True," Jaime said with a grin, rubbing his arm where Vic punched him. 

“I’m gonna wake up Mike,” Tony said. “We can’t open the door all the way until we move the mirror, and from the looks of it it’s going to take all four of us to move this thing.”

The mirror turned out to be incredibly heavy, as Tony predicted, but the four of them managed to pry it from the wall and settle it on the ground.

This time the door opened all the way, but they stopped at the threshold. None of the other hallways they had been in were this devoid of light. There had always been a dim glow from sporadically placed recessed lights. But this was an empty void, almost like looking into nothing at all.

“Together?” Mike suggested.

He felt Jaime grab his shirt and Mike grab his shoulder. Vic reached out and grasped onto Tony’s forearm. Together, they shuffled forward into the inky blackness, the flashlight doing next to nothing to illuminate their new path.

“This isn’t so bad yet,” Jaime nervously said, his hot breath on Vic’s neck. Vic could only see his outline in the light provided by the flashlight.

But just as the words left Jaime’s mouth, the floor gave out on them.

Vic yelped in surprise, similar responses torn from his brother and friends, as something literally tore the ground from beneath their feet. He felt weightless for a moment, before his butt and back collided with solid metal, the air rushing from his lungs with an _oof_  from the impact. The metal surface sloped downwards, like a slide, and he felt himself slipping down into the darkness.  He could hear the thuds of his brother and friends as they rattled down the twisted slide with him, but he couldn’t see them. He felt something catch on his jacket, tearing a hole as his momentum carried him further down the slide.

He heard someone shout in pain, and someone else hiss as something else snagged his pant leg, scratching at his skin, before letting go. A dim light loomed in the distance, growing bigger and bigger and bigger. He threw his arms over his face, preparing for the worst, as he hit the end of the tunnel.

Vic felt weightless for a second time, before his body slammed into a pile of garbage bags filled with sharp and pointy items that scratched at his skin as he quickly rolled off the bags and scrambled to his feet just as Tony and Mike slammed into the pile after him. Mike rolled out of the way just in time, as Jaime emerged from the tunnel and landed in the pile.

"Oh  _fuck,"_ Tony said through clenched teeth, rolling on to his side as he clutched his shoulder. 

"Is that your bad shoulder?" Mike asked, crouching down next to him, hands hovering over Tony's arm. "The one you dislocated in the bike accident?"

"Y-yeah," Tony managed to say, squeezing his eyes shut. 

"Do you think it's dislocated again? I know how to put a dislocated shoulder back in. Ask Vic. He'll vouch for me," Mike said.

"It's true," Vic said, crouching down on Tony's other side. 

"I don't think it's dislocated again," Tony said, managing to sit up, but still clutching at his shoulder. 

"Does anything feel broken?" Vic asked. 

Tony rolled his shoulder a few times, testing out the joint. "I don't think so," he said. "I think I just aggravated my old injuries."

"Are you sure?" Vic asked. He didn't want Tony pushing himself if he re-broke his collar bone or any of his ribs.

"Pretty sure," Tony said, giving both Vic and his brother a somewhat reassuring grimace. "I'll be okay." 

Vic patted Tony on his good shoulder, and turned to glance at Jaime who was muttering underneath his breath. 

Jaime stood stock still, staring up at the hole near the ceiling of the room that they had fallen through, and that was too high up for any of them to reach. “No, no, no, no, no. This can’t be happening,” Jaime suddenly said, tearing at his hair as he started to pace the room. “This can’t be happening.”

Alarmed at Jaime’s sudden change in demeanor, Vic rushed over to him, quickly scanning his body for injuries.

“What? What is it?” Tony asked, his voice tinged with panic.

Jaime met his gaze with terror in his eyes. “I lost the map.”

*

**_Day 9_ **

Jack and Nick were moved first from their cell. Justin could hear the drag of their bodies against the ground, the clattering of wheels, each and every one of their captor’s footsteps, and the slam of a door against the wall.

He shared one last glance with Gabe before letting his body slump forward, head hanging, and eyes closed. He tried to keep his breaths even, his body relaxed, but as the footsteps grew nearer it became harder and harder to pretend to be unconscious.

He heard footsteps grow closer and then stop before their prison cell, before the door slide open. He tensed his body briefly and then forced himself to relax his muscles. He counted each breath, in _1 2 3,_ out _1 2 3,_ in __1 2 3,__ out __1 2 3_._ Never once faltering and dare giving up the rouse when he heard their captor’s steps stop in front of him.

The rough, dirty hands of their captor grabbed at his skin, yanking his arms free from the chains. He suppressed a shiver of repulsion as hands wrapped around his forearms, and he felt his upper half lifted slightly, his pants and shoes scrapping along the ground as the man dragged his body away from the wall. The man dragged him out of the room, and then dropped him on the ground. A moment later, he felt himself lifted with a grunt from their captor, and found himself lying on something cold and metal that rolled slightly as his body settled.

Remaining completely still as the man walked away proved difficult, and he found himself clenching and unclenching the hand trapped under his chest. His stomach roiled, and threatened to expel what little food and bile remained in it. He swallowed without making it seem too obvious as he heard the man come back, dragging something heavy, presumably Gabe’s body. With a grunt of exertion from their captor, he felt the warmth of Gabe’s body settle along his back.

And then they were being rolled down the hallway.

In mere seconds, they would know if Kellin still lived.

And in just a moment, a miniscule dot on the space time continuum, their entire fate would be decided.

They came to a stop. The anxiety burning in his stomach rose, attacking his chest and throat. He fought to suppress the shaking threatening his limbs as Gabe’s warmth disappeared from his back with a thud and a grunt from their captor.

He heard footsteps coming back for him. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter.

“Justin, now!” he heard Gabe shout.

Justin tore his eyes open in time to see Gabe tackle their captor from behind. He begged his body to move. He begged his legs to spring to his feet and help Gabe.

But he hesitated. For for just a moment too long, Justin hesitated.

For in that moment, their captor pulled a gun from his pocket, and with a deafening _bang,_ shot Gabe in the stomach.

Justin finally forced himself to his feet, and off the cart he had been lying on.

But it was too late.

Gabe fell into the wall, and crumpled to ground, blood pouring out of the wound in his stomach, his eyes wide as he glanced up at Justin, mouth forming around a soundless gasp.

Their captor trained the gun on Justin.

“Look what you made me do!” the man roared.

Justin shrunk back against the wall next to Gabe, flinching as the madman waved his gun in his direction. He’d already shot Gabe in the stomach, and there was nothing stopping him from pulling the trigger again.

“You think you can just trick me!” the man roared, jabbing his gun in Justin’s direction again. He cowered against the wall, pressing his back against the cool concrete. “I’ll show you what happens when you fight me,” he said.

Justin squeezed his eyes shut expecting a bullet tearing through his flesh, and unimaginable pain. Instead, he heard the squeak of a mattress. His eyes flew open, heart racing faster. He can’t, surely he wouldn’t …

 _No. No, Goddamnit!_ he thought in horror as madman attacked the figure on the bed instead. The relief at finding Kellin alive was quickly replaced with guilt and horror for what he knew was about to happen. He watched as the man yanked Kellin’s jeans down to his ankles and pushed Kellin’s knees to his chest, fighting to pull his own paants down, too. Kellin’s head was turned away from him, facing the wall, but Justin could tell from the quiet hiccup of breaths that he was crying.

Their captor rolled on a condom from his pocket over his erection, covered it in just saliva, and lined himself up. 

“Don’t,” Justin cried, reaching out towards his friend, half rising to his feet. He couldn't just watch this man torture Kellin because of what he did. He could never forgive himself.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll shove this inside of him instead,” the sadist said, grabbing the gun off the bed, and pushing the barrel against Kellin’s temple. “This is what happens when you fight back,” their captor said with a sick laugh before shoving himself inside of Kellin, tearing a cry of pain from Kellin and one of protest from Gabe. "You get to watch someone else pay for _your_ bad judgement." 

Justin sunk to his knees again next to Gabe, knowing there was nothing he could do unless he wanted to watch Kellin die instead. He had enough presence of mind to pull off his filthy denim vest, covered in grime and blood by this point, and press it against the wound in Gabe’s stomach, causing him to hiss in response.

“I’m sorry,” Justin said, feeling the sob trapped in his chest break free. Though he fought them, he felt tears rolling down his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault,” he whispered over and over again to Gabe, hoping Kellin could hear him too.

Both of them averted their eyes from the act of cruelty taking place mere feet from them, but they couldn’t block out the sounds of the madman’s grunts as he raped their best friend, nor the sound of Kellin’s soft sobs and whimpers.

When the noises finally died down, Justin dared to take a peek. He saw their capture uncuff Kellin, only to drag him off the bed, and shove him to his knees in the center of the room. Kellin fell on all fours, his eyes glued to the floor, hair obscuring his face from Justin’s view.

Justin wouldn’t want to look at himself either.

For the first time, Justin caught sight of Kellin's naked back. The entire area was covered in deep lashes that looked an angry blood red, and raw and painful, some so deep they looked as if they had cut down through to the muscle. The urge to vomit rose within him again. But this time, he didn't know if he could fight it off. 

Justin heard a gasp and the rattle of chains, signaling Jack and Nick were awake, and may have been for some time. But Justin was too scared to look at them; too scared to see the disappointment on their faces that the plan failed and it was all Justin’s fault.

“You think you can just escape from me?” the man screamed kicking Kellin in the chest. Justin flinched at the sickening sound their captor’s boot made as it collided with Kellin’s flesh. Gabe clenched his fists, a protest dying on his lips. Who knew what their captor would do if he said anything?

“You think you’re better than me?” the man screamed, his face splotched red, punctuating his statement with another kick to Kellin’s chest. “I *kick* own *kick* you!” he said, panting heavily as he kicked Kellin in the chest one last time. “I’ll show you,” the man promised, holding the gun unsteadily on Kellin as he walked to the wall of horrors and grabbed a lead pipe. “This is what happens when you try to escape,” he roared, bringing the pipe against Kellin’s back. "No one disobeys me!" 

Justin cringed at the dull thud the lead pipe made as it collided with Kellin’s skin. Tears were freely flowing down Gabe’s face and his own.

The air rushed out of Kellin’s lungs in a chocked off gasp as the madman brought the pipe down against Kellin’s back again, reopening the lashes strew across his back. Tiny rivulets of blood began racing down his back, splashing against the off-white tiles below.

Their captor struck Kellin again and again. Each time a whoosh of air or a gasp of breath escaped Kellin, but not a single scream. Over and over the blows kept falling, until Kellin's whole body started shaking violently.

Fire burned in their captor’s eyes. Justin knew if he did not stop soon, then he would watch his best friend get beaten to death right in front of him.

And it was all Justin's fault. 

“Stop it!” Nick suddenly screamed, causing Justin to jump. Their captor paused mid-strike, his eyes flashing with rage as he turned to glare Nick. “You’re killing him,” Nick said, voice tinged with desperation.

Their captor turned his focus back to Kellin, hand still stuck in a tableau above his head as he gripped the lead pipe so hard his knuckles turned white. Justin expected the blow to fall.

“Fuck!” the man yelled instead, lowering his hand with the lead pipe. He raised the hand with the gun instead. “No, no, no,” he said, pacing around Kellin. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t ... You,” he said pointing the gun at Justin.  “Get over here.” 

Justin’s breath stuttered, and for the second time that day, he felt his limbs locking in place. His brain said _‘move dammit,’_ but nothing happened.

“I said get. over. here,” the madman said, placing the barrel of the gun to the back of Kellin’s head. Kellin flinched, curling forward slightly.

The fear for his best friend’s life propelled him to his feet.

“On your knees,” their captor said, pointing to the empty space next to Kellin. “I said on your knees,” he roared, pistol whipping Justin with the gun. The force of the blow knocked him off his feet. “This is your fault,” the man said, raising the lead pipe above his head and lashing it down, catching Justin in the face with enough force to knock him on his side. “He’s not supposed to die yet,” the man said, whacking the lead pipe against his body.

Justin crossed his arms in front of his face and curled into a ball, trying to protect himself as much as possible. But the blows continued to fall, over and over again, until his body burned in agony, his breaths painfully beating against his chest. It seemed never ending, and his brain panicked, screaming ‘no, you can’t die like this!’

He knew this was no one’s fault, but his own, though.  And if he were to die right here, right now, it was better to die first than to watch Kellin suffer for his mistake.

But as he made a prayer to a God he wasn’t sure existed, just as quickly as the blows began, suddenly, they stopped.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna lie, I rewrote a lot of this chapter, and I'm still not 100% happy with it. But I didn't know how to fix it without completely re-writing the whole thing and altering the plot for the rest of the story. And I do like how the next two chapters play out, so I didn't want to do that. That doesn't mean this chapter is awful or anything, I'm just being super over critical of my own work. I wouldn't be a writer if I wasn't, though, lol.
> 
> I am going to put a little bit of a gag warning on this chapter. I almost started gagging while writing one of the scenes.

**_Day 9_ **

“I-I don’t know what happened,” Jaime said, running a shaky hand across his sweaty brow. “My arm, it just got caught on something, and-and the map got torn from my hand. And I tried to reach for it, but I was still sliding down the tunnel, and it was stuck on whatever caught my arm. And I wasn’t quick enough. And I thought, I thought it would just come floating down the tunnel. It has to come down, right? But it’s not coming down.”

“Jaime,” Mike said slowly, cautiously approaching him and Vic. “It's okay."

“It's okay? It's not okay. It's _not_ okay,” Jaime hysterically said with a weak, shaky laugh that scared Vic. He’d never seen Jaime loose his cool before. No matter the situation, Jaime always had a joke, always had something to say to try and cheer everybody else up. But now he had been reduced to a rambling mess, and it was frightening to witness. “We’re trapped down here without the one thing we need to lead us out,” Jaime said, shaking his head vigorously. “And it’s all my fault –”

“It’s not your fault,” Vic quickly cut in, grasping both of Jaime’s shoulder, trying to control the other man’s uncontrollable shaking.

“But I lost the map and –”

“It’s not your fault, Jaime,” Vic reassured.  Jaime shook his head no again and buried his face in his hands. “I know it seems hard right now, but please calm down,” Vic said.

“Deep breaths, hermano,” Tony said, dragging himself to his feet, though he still clutched his bad shoulder.

“But … Kellin. And the guys,” Jaime said.

Vic felt his heart clench painfully, and he squeezed Jaime’s shoulder a little too tightly. Every moment they wasted was a moment something horrible could be happening, a moment closer to death for all of SWS. That thought weighed heavily on each of them.

But that wasn’t Jaime’s fault, and he didn’t deserve to blame himself for it.

“That’s not your fault either,” Vic softly said. “We’ll figure something out, okay?”

Jaime nodded. Though his eyes were still wet, Jaime finally took a deep breath and calmed down a little.

Until Tony said, “Don’t freak out, man, but you’re bleeding.”

“I’m what!?” Jaime said, starting to hyperventilate again. 

“I said don’t freak out,” Tony said, grabbing Jaime’s left wrist and maneuvering him to expose the back of Jaime’s upper arm. Underneath Jaime’s torn shirt was a cut that went from his shoulder down to his elbow.

“Oh my God, is it bad? Am I going to bleed to death?” Jaime asked, and if he hadn’t looked so sincere about the question, Vic might have laughed at him.

“I don’t think it’s that deep,” Tony said, shining the flashlight on the cut.

“I’m just gonna slather the cut with antibiotic cream, wrap it in gauze, and you’ll be as good as new. Sound good?” Tony said, slipping the backpack off his shoulder and pulling out the first aid kit. 

Jaime nodded frantically, looking away as Tony popped the cap on the antibiotic ointment. He hissed as Tony covered the cut and wrapped it, only daring to look once Tony stepped back. “All good?” he asked in shaky voice.

“All good,” Tony reassured.

“I’m sorry,” Jaime said, finally opening his eyes again, but he was blushing and staring at the ground. “I’m not too good with blood and stuff.”

“It’s okay. No one’s judging,” Mike said, pulling him into a side hug.

Jaime nodded, and returned the hug. “What are we going to do now?” he asked, looking up to meet Vic’s eyes. “We don’t have the map. We don’t have the plan anymore.”

“We do the only thing we can do now,” Vic said, receiving looks from his brother and best friends that were as grim as his own.

-

“Another dead end,” Tony sighed, turning 180 on his heels and walking back the way they’d just come. Jaime looked close to tears again. This was their third dead end in who knows how long since they left the room filled with trash. They couldn’t even tell if it was the same dead end each time.

With every dead end, and every random turn that led to nowhere, Vic felt the darkness descend further over his thoughts and his heart. He feared more than ever that they would not find the love of his life in time before something truly awful and irreversible happened.

With every step, the hopelessness consumed him, eating away at the courage and will that led him down here in the first place, the fire that told him he could make it through and rescue his boyfriend. It wasn’t just him, though, the others were starting to feel it, too, even Mike, the eternal optimist.

Silence had descended over them; the only sounds heard, those of their feet scuffling against the ground, and their heavy breaths. It was the silence more than anything that bothered him the most. Jaime was never silent, never. His sudden lack of constant dialogue felt more disconcerting than anything else.

And with nothing but the concrete walls to distract him, his thoughts kept turning to Kellin.

He wondered if Kellin and his band had felt what he did now. Had they made it this far and felt the same hopelessness of never feeling the sun against their skin, or the grass beneath their feet, or the love of the ones they cared for most again? Had Kellin thought of Vic as much as he thought of Kellin?

Vic reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring he had planned to propose to Kellin with when both their tours ended. It was just a plain, black platinum ring. Kellin could be a diva sometimes, _and_ his boyfriend obsessed about his hair and clothes a little bit too much sometimes, but he still wasn’t one for flashy jewelry or gaudy signs of affection.

_“I just need you,”_ Kellin always said, sealing his statement with a kiss every time. 

He hadn’t taken the ring out of his pocket since he bought it, too excited at the prospect of marrying Kellin one day to let it go. 

He still remembered the day they met on the set for _King for a Day._

They had arrived at the studio at the same time, and Kellin had held the door open for him. Vic remembered glancing up to nod his thanks when he caught sight of the beautiful man and froze. He had milky white skin and a blue-green eyes with a hint of amusement glinting in them. Vic grabbed his own arm, forcing himself not to reach out and run his fingers through the man's silky locks to see if they felt as smooth slipping through his fingers as they looked. He wondered if the man's plush pink lips would feel soft against his skin, or rough and demanding, and if ... He stopped his lustful thoughts there.This man before him was probably just another handsome extra on set, or perhaps a PA. Either way, he was someone Vic would never see again. So he had given a nod and a quiet thanks, and hurried away.

It was quite the shock, therefore, when Kellin walked on set just a moment after him, and Jaime walked over to the beautiful and said, "It's Kellin, right?" Vic's eyes widened in mortification as Kellin grinned at Jaime, shook his hand, and said, "At your service." He then winked at Vic, who blushed and stammered out an apology.

But Kellin had brushed it off with a laugh. "Maybe you could make it up to me by taking me out for coffee later?” he said shyly so only Vic could hear.

They met at a little coffeehouse the next day and never looked back. 

Honestly, Vic doesn’t think either of them meant to fall in love. But he’d fallen quick and hard for Kellin’s genuine charm and compassion, and Kellin had fallen just as quick. And though it was hard being together when they both toured so often, they made it work.

They tried to never go more than two weeks without seeing each other, taking turns to fly out to meet each other when they could, even if it was  just for a day. But with Vic touring in Europe and Kellin in the states, their schedules hadn’t allowed for that to happen for far too long. They tried to meet in NYC two weeks prior to when Kellin went missing, but their plans had fallen through. They had both been so disappointed, but Kellin had been holding back tears as Vic explained to him why he couldn’t meet him. The reason seemed so silly now.

But Kellin had to know how much Vic loved him, right? Had to know Vic would do anything for him, even launch a crazy, half-assed rescue mission into the demented lair of a psychopath just to see him again?

If his boyfriend died here, he would dying knowing how much Vic cared for him … right? Had he told Kellin enough? Had he made him feel as loved as Vic felt?

He sighed, turning his phone on to look through some of their text messages.

_At hotel. Call you in a few. <3,_ the last text Kellin sent himstared accusingly at him. He started scrolling through the rest, reading through their mostly lame flirtations with each other and declarations of love, smiling to himself at some of Kellin’s sillier messages and funny stories about his band mates.

But something about his phone tickled his memory. Something about his phone made an idea itch at the edge of his thoughts, like he was forgetting something very …

Oh. Oh God. He was such an idiot. Oh God, how could he forget?

“Guys, don’t hate me, please don’t hate me,” he said, pulling open the downloaded documents on his phone.

“What? What is it?” Mike asked sounding panicked.

“I’m so stupid. How could I be so stupid?” Vic said.

“Vic, you’re scaring me, what is it?” Mike said.

“It’s not ... ” he said, and then cut himself off, sighing in relief when the document opened. “I have another copy of the blueprints. I downloaded it to my phone before we came down here. I completely forgot about it. I’m so sorry.”  

He heard Jaime sigh loudly in relief. “Oh, thank the Lord. You scared the shit out of me there,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Vic said again. They just wasted hours wandering through this Hell hole, and he made them all worry about never finding their way out again because he was an idiot that forget he had a backup.

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up,” Mike said. “You remembered, that’s all that matters.”

“And you brought a backup to begin with. That’s smart planning,” Tony added, trying to cheer him up.

But just as Tony said the words, he noticed the low battery warning light on his phone was flashing. One percent battery, it said. One measly percent. “What? No, no, no, no, no, no,” he said to his phone, as if he could magically make the battery charge. He had completely spent his battery using it as a flashlight in the mirror room.

His phone flashed, and then the screen turned black, crushing Vic’s renewed hope.

Just as he thought things were looking up, fate slapped them down once again.

*

**_Day 9_ **

Jack fought to suppress the violent urge to vomit as their captor dropped the bloody lead pipe to the ground, the metal clattering against the solid tiles.

“This is what happens when you fight back,” the monster said. “This is what … ” He cut himself off with a growl. Jack held his breath, expecting the man to start beating Kellin or Justin again, but instead he started pacing.

Justin lay on his side where he had fallen after the pipe connected with his face. Fresh bruises bloomed across his arms and under his tattered clothing from the beating he’d taken. The solid whack to his face left a forming bruise larger than the size of Jack’s fist that encompassed Justin’s entire left eye, across his cheekbone, and disappeared into his hairline, his eye quickly swelling shut.  Jack wouldn’t be surprised if his cheekbone fractured under the force of that blow.

Kellin was on his hands and knees still, breathing heavily. Like Justin, fresh bruises pooled on his arms, and across his naked back and chest. Blood trickled slowly still down his back from the reopened wounds, and snacked across his skin that was more red, purple, black and blue than white. But it wasn’t the blood pooling underneath him that worried Jack the most; it was the way his entire body violently trembled, like he couldn’t control it.

“He’s going into shock,” he heard Nick whisper as they shared a worried glance.

Never had Jack witnessed a more savage beating than the one Kellin and Justin just endured. And never did he want to witness something so atrocious ever again.

He heard a sniffle, and his eyes shot to Gabe. The drummer had Justin’s vest, soaked through with blood, pressed tightly to his stomach. Jack didn’t know what happened, but Gabe’s skin had paled to a sickly white color, and his hands were trembling. Gabe was openly crying, tears leaving tracks in the dirt encrusted on his face. Whether it was from the pain of his own injuries, or from watching Kellin and Justin get the shit beat out of them, Jack didn’t know.

He kind of felt like crying himself.

“Dammit,” their captor said, pressing his lips into a thin white line and clenching the hand not holding the gun. “Dammit,” their captor said louder, throwing his arms up in the air in frustration. Both Justin and Kellin flinched.

Jack tensed every muscle in his body as their captor stalked over to where he and Nick were chained to the wall. He forced himself not to flinch as the man swung his free hand wildly. But instead of a blow aimed at either of them, their captor jammed his hand into his pocket. Angrily, he tugged his hand free, pulling out a key and growling in annoyance as his entire pocket turned inside out.

He threw the key at Nick’s face. “Fix him,” the man said. “Or I’ll make you watch as I kill every single one of your friends.”

Nick watched the man storm out the door, cringing as the door slammed shut, before freeing his wrist from the chain.

“What does he mean ‘fix him?’” Jack asked, rubbing the raw skin of his good wrist against his pant leg to ease the pain after Nick freed him.

Nick sighed heavily. “I think he’s developed a bit of a … an obsession with Kellin. Nearly killing Kellin twice now was an accident, because he couldn’t control his anger, but I don’t think he wants Kellin to die yet, that's why he stopped beating him when I pointed out he was killing him.”

Jack shivered in disgust and swallowed thickly.  _He’s not done with him yet, he_  heard the unspoken words. But what else was there to take from Kellin? How much more could he really endure? “He’s not … he’s not dying, is he?”

Nick looked down and didn’t answer. “Come on,” he said instead, forcing himself to his feet, and offering a hand to help Jack up.  

“What are we going to do?” Jack asked. He cast his glance from Gabe to Kellin. Honestly, he wasn’t sure who was in worse shape.

“I don’t know, I’ve never had to triage before,” Nick said. 

Nick cast his glance back and forth between Gabe and Kellin. Jack thought he might have heard the older man muttering ‘eenie meenie miney mo’ under his breath, before he settled on Gabe. Nick stabilized his bad arm with a hand on his elbow, before stumbling over to Gabe, steps hesitant.  

“What happened?” Nick softly asked, kneeling next to Gabe.

“I got shot,” Gabe said with a dry, humorless laugh. His face slipped into a deeper frown. “We failed. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Nick reassured, peeling away the vest to get a better look at the wound. Jack swallowed hard at the sight of Gabe’s blood dripping from his body.“Let’s get you to the bed. Do you think you can walk?”

“If I have to,” Gabe muttered.

Nick slipped his good shoulder under Gabe’s arm, Jack mirroring him on the other side. Together they hauled Gabe to his feet, Justin’s bloodied vest falling to the floor at their feet.

From the corner of his eye, Jack saw Justin struggling to rise.

“No, stay with Kellin,” Nick told Justin, having noticed the same thing. Kellin had made no attempt to move at all. With how much his arms were shaking, though, Jack was surprised Kellin was even able to hold himself up. Jack shoved the worry away for the moment, turning his focus solely on Gabe. ~~~~

Gabe’s breaths were labored, body trembling as they walked agonizingly slow across the small room. Small gasps of pain escaped his lips every time he set his foot down, and blood had begun to seep into the hem of pajama pants.

Just as they reached the bed and set Gabe down, Jack’s foot slipped on something wet and slippery. He looked down and saw a used condom covered in blood and dripping semen. He gagged, feeling the bile in the back of his throat.

“Oh God,” Jack said, gagging again. Nick gave him a sympathetic look as they laid Gabe down as gently as possible. Once Gabe was secure on the bed, Jack quickly ran away and hunched over the sink, desperately trying to control his gagging and keep what little was in his stomach inside of him.

The first thing Jack had seen when he’d woken up in this wretched room was Nick’s profile, eyes wide and terrified as the older man pointedly stared away from the wall opposite from them. He heard the pleasured groans of their captor next and the sound of skin slapping against skin. Jack had had enough sex in his life to recognize those sounds.

It wasn't usually accompanied by crying, though. 

He hadn’t wanted to look, but his eyes had other ideas and wondered over to the other side of the room.  He regretted it, and looked away immediately. But it was too late. The sight of watching someone brutally force themselves on one of his closest friends was forever branded onto his brain, never to be forgotten.

He wanted to feel relief that Kellin hadn’t been killed in a fit of rage. But the horror of knowing what he was being forced to endure masked the relief, shoved it so far down Jack couldn’t even find it anymore.

He glanced over at Kellin now who still had made no attempt to move, body still trembling. He got his first good look at Kellin’s back and it sent him leaning over the sink again, fighting not to vomit. Some of those cuts were so deep they looked as if Kellin’s guts might come spilling out of them at any moment.

“No,” he heard Kellin say. Jack risked another glance at Kellin. Justin’s hand hovered over Kellin’s arm, not daring to touch the bruised, fragile skin. “D-don’t, don’t touch me,” Kellin said in a small, broken voice.

Jack swallowed around the lump in his throat.  His own trauma nagged at him, like the claws of a cat on the back of a couch. He tried shoving it away, but it threatened to drag him under until all he wanted to do was cry into his knees and beg for death. But his own horror didn’t even scratch at the surface of what Kellin had been through, and he couldn’t even imagine what Kellin must be feeling right now. 

Muffled screaming from Gabe tore his eyes away from Justin and Kellin. Jack regained control of his stomach as quickly as possible before hurrying back over to Nick.

He reached the side of the bed just as Nick was rinsing off a pair of tweezers with alcohol.  The condom had thankfully been pushed out of sight.

“You good?” Nick asked, briefly glancing at him.

“For now,” Jack said, wiping his mouth with the back of his good hand. “What do you need me to do?”

“Grab gauze, and a lot of it,” Nick said. “This is gonna hurt, Gabe. You might want to bite down on the something.”

Gabe nodded, shoving the pillow into his mouth. Nick shoved the tweezers into the wound and dug around for the bullet. The pillow did little to muffle Gabe’s screams.

Jack grabbed an armful of gauze from the cabinet, dumping it on the bed as Nick pulled the tweezers free, a tiny silver bullet clenched between the prongs. He dropped the bloody bullet into a bed pan sitting on the floor next to the bed.

_Something so small shouldn’t be allowed to cause so much damage,_ he thought, as he ripped open several packets of gauze with his teeth and handed them to Nick. Blood trickled out of the wound on Gabe’s stomach. Nick placed a stack of gauze on the wound, pressing down hard to try and staunch the flow of bleeding as best as he could. Nick then took the medical tape and wrapped it all the way around Gabe, keeping the gauze pressed as tightly as possible to the wound. Gabe had his eyes squeezed shut, teeth grit together, exhaling shakily through the pain.

“Let’s bring Kellin over here and lay him next to Gabe,” Nick quietly said, pulling Gabe’s shirt down over the wound, even though it was soaked through with blood.

“Is that such a good idea?” Jack whispered. Kellin still had not moved a single muscle. Jack wasn’t sure if he even could. He had to be in an incredible amount of pain that would only intensify if they moved him.

“No,” Nick whispered back to him. “But I think he’s in shock. And Gabe’s probably going to go into shock if we don’t do anything. We have to keep them both warm if we don’t want them to die. Since we don’t have any blankets except this sheet, I’m hoping their combined body heat will help keep them both warm.”

Jack didn’t like the idea of putting Kellin through that right now, especially after seeing how much pain Gabe was in, but he couldn’t really argue about it either.

Jack hovered near Nick as Nick washed Gabe’s blood off of his hands in the little sink provided for them, his hands shaking under the spray of cold water. Then Nick cautiously approached the injured singer and dropped to his knees in front of him. “Kells,” Nick quietly said, using the affectionate nickname to try and calm him. He reached out slowly to brush Kellin’s hair away from his face.

Kellin finally looked up. His cheeks were bruised, lips cracked and dry, eyes glossy and red. Though his cheeks were flushed, the rest of his skin had taken on an ashen color. He blinked rapidly, as if he was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

“Let’s get you on the bed, okay?” Nick said in a soft voice.

“No,” Kellin pleaded, voice just barely above a whisper.

“I know it hurts, but we have to warm you up and take care of your back.”

Kellin made an almost imperceptible shake of his head. When Nick reached for him again, he flinched away, gasping in pain as the muscles of his back rippled and pulled at the fresh wounds. “Don’t.”

“I just want to feel your forehead and maybe the back of your neck, okay?” Nick moved slower this time, placing the back of his hand against Kellin’s forehead before wrapping his hand around the back of Kellin’s neck. His frown deepened.

“What is it?” Justin asked.

Nick pursed his lips and shook his head ‘no’ slightly.

“Vic,” Kellin suddenly said as Nick let his hand fall away.

Jack felt his stomach drop and then clench uncomfortably.

“N-No. Vic’s not here. It’s me, Nick,” the older man said, tenderly brushing a few stray pieces of hair out of Kellin’s face again, and tucking them behind his ear.

“No,” Kellin insisted, shaking his head vigorously. He hissed in pain, squeezing his eyes shut, and tightly clenching his hands into fists. “No. He’s here. In the maze. The man, he said so,” Kellin said slowly, his words slurring. His eyes stayed closed for longer and longer periods of time, and he was having trouble opening them each time. "He can't be here. He can't." 

“Vic loves you very much. And I’m sure he’s safe,” Nick reassured, saying what he thought Kellin wanted to hear. He moved his body so he was closer and more fully in front of Kellin, holding his good arm around Kellin’s shoulder without touching him.

_What are you doing?_ Jack was about to ask when Kellin’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he slumped forward into Nick’s chest unconscious. Nick tightened his grip on him, preventing Kellin from falling to the floor.

“Kell –” Justin said, reaching out towards him.

“Don’t,” Nick said, cutting him off. “Let him have this.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to just let him pass out like that?” Justin asked, scrunching his eyebrows in worry.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Nick said, making Justin’s eyes widen. “But it’ll be a lot easier to take care of his wounds if he’s unconscious and I know I’m not hurting him. Plus, I really think he deserves a break right now.” He slid around Kellin so the singer’s back was pressed to his chest, and he wrapped his good arm around Kellin’s waist. “Jack, get his underwear, please.”

Jack almost protested. None of them were strangers to dicks. Besides seeing his own dick on a daily basis, being stuck together 24/7 for months on end in tiny living facilities pretty much meant he’d seen everyone in his band’s dick at least once. When they first got a bus after touring in a van for years, Gabe initiated a game where they would pull back the curtain and surprise anyone caught masturbating on the bus. Which now in retrospect seemed a bit creepy. But they still occasionally played the game where the first person caught passing out after a party on the bus got someone’s dick touched to their face. Which Jack doesn’t want to know how many times that’s happened to him.

So yeah, Jack was no stranger to the nakedness of other men, and it had ceased to bother him. But he had a feeling this was more about providing Kellin a little bit of the privacy and security that had been ripped from him by their captor than about modesty. So he grabbed Kellin’s boxer briefs from off the floor, carefully avoiding looking at the condom. He slid the garment up Kellin’s bruised and bloody legs, keeping his eyes fixated on the wall as he did so.

“Get his legs, and we’ll carry him over to the bed.”

Jack slid his undamaged arm under Kellin’s legs. Together they awkwardly managed to carry Kellin over to the bed. Behind him, Justin struggled to his feet, stopping half way to catch his breath.

“Hey, don’t force yourself. You just took a pretty savage beating. Just take it easy,” Nick said to Justin, throwing a glance at Justin over his shoulder. Nick tried to gently lay Kellin down on the bed, but with the use of only one arm and the awkward angle he was holding him, he ended up dropping Kellin the last few inches. Nick cringed. ‘ _See, this is why it’s a good thing he’s unconscious_ ,’ the look he threw Jack seemed to say.

“No,” Justin said, forcing himself the rest of the way to his feet. “No, I want to help.”

There was something odd about Justin’s behavior that Jack wasn’t quite sure he could chalk up to the beating he just took. But he brushed the feeling aside. Now really wasn’t the time to worry about it.

“Okay, uh, grab some peroxide and a roll of gauze,” Nick said, not arguing with Justin. They knew from experience Justin could be a stubborn son of a bitch, and it was best just to let this one go.

“Do we have to do this?” Justin asked, reluctantly handing over the peroxide as Jack kept Kellin rolled on his side.

“Feel his forehead,” Nick said. “He’s burning up. And look at these two cuts here. See how they’re red and puffy around the edges? They’re infected. If we don’t do something about the infection it could infiltrate his blood stream. If that happens, even if we get him to the hospital immediately, he still might not make it. We can’t let that happen.”

Justin tightened his grip on the bottle of peroxide, his gaze fixed on the floor. “Wouldn’t it … wouldn’t it be better if the fever killed him than to be beaten to death?” Justin hesitantly asked.

Nick snatched the bottle from Justin’s hands. “No. No one’s getting beaten to death,” Nick snapped, shutting the conversation down there.  

Thankfully, Kellin remained unconscious while Nick made quick work cleaning out the lashes on his back. Jack had to look away as the peroxide sizzled through some of the deeper cuts, washing away the blood and revealing the muscle underneath. He and Justin held Kellin up between them so Nick could wrap the gauze around his back and over his shoulders. He held his breath as Kellin briefly regained consciousness, mumbling incoherently, before falling unconscious again.

Thank God for small miracles.

They cleaned and wrapped the lashes on the back of his thighs, as well, resolutely ignoring the smear of blood on the inside of his thighs that didn’t come from the whip marks. Neither he nor Justin said anything when Nick chose to ignore the cuts on Kellin's buttocks, though.

“Help me get his pants on,” Nick softly said.

“Won’t that irritate the,” Justin said, pointing to the lashes on Kellin’s legs instead of saying it.

“Probably,” Nick said. “But after what we just saw, I think he’d feel a lot more comfortable having them on.”

Justin looked away, shame coloring his cheeks. There was that … odd behavior again. But again, Jack brushed it aside as he helped Nick carefully slid Kellin’s skinny jeans on.

“I can’t find his shirt anywhere,” Jack said. Nick nodded as if he expected that.

“All right, man up and cuddle Kellin,” Nick said to Gabe, trying to lighten the solemn mood that had fallen over them just a little bit. The corners of Gabe’s mouth briefly twitched upwards into a small smile, but instantly fell flat again. After what they had seen and experienced, it was hard to find any part of them inside and out that did not hurt and was still capable of forming a smile.  

Gabe slipped an arm under Kellin’s shoulders and slid closer until their bodies were touching from shoulder to ankle. “Can you get something to elevate their feet with?” Nick asked Justin, as he tenderly tucked the sheet around both of them.

Justin nodded and hurried away as quickly as his injuries would allow him. They ended up just shoving a bunch of boxes of who knows what from the cabinet under their feet. Again, Jack didn’t ask why.

“If Kellin wakes up, or if he starts to feel too hot, let me know right away,” Nick said. He tucked the sheets a little tighter around Gabe, before grabbing Justin by the arm and dragging him towards the sink. “Okay, Justin, your turn.”

“I-I’m fine,” Justin argued.

“No you’re not,” Nick murmured.

Their voices sounded so far away, though they had only walked a few feet from him. Jack felt dizzy, his breaths coming in quick gasps. He brought his broken arm to his chest, clasping onto it with his good hand. It should hurt, he knew it was supposed to hurt.

But he felt nothing, just numbness and a vague feeling of pins and needles. He commanded his fingers to move, but they barely even twitched. It didn’t take a doctor to know that wasn’t a good sign.

This was fucked. This was so fucked. They were all fucked. He just nearly watched Kellin and Justin get beaten to death. Justin and Kellin almost _died._ If Nick hadn’t interfered when he did, spoke up when Jack had been too scared too, Kellin probably _would_ have died.

But next time would the man stop?

Would he kill Jack the same way?

He felt something grasp his arm, and he jerked away. His vision had tunneled, his breaths coming so fast he was panting at this point, struggling to force air into his constricted chest.

“It’s just me,” he heard Nick say, but it felt so far away still. He didn’t struggle this time as a hand wrapped around his upper arm and dragged him towards the sink.

“Come on, Jack, breath,” the same voice – Nick – commanded him. He was pushed until he was bending forward over the sink. Something cool and wet was pressed to his forehead. “Deep breathes.”

 “What are we going to do?” Jack whisper yelled to Justin and Nick, nearly hysterical at this point. He tried to take deep breaths, and felt a little calmer, but his chest still felt way too tight, and his legs felt weak and shaky.  “Stomach wounds take a long time to bleed out, but not that long. And Kellin is not going to survive another beating like that. My hand is beyond fucked. You can’t even more your arm anymore, and Justin doesn’t have any fingernails!”

“I know,” Nick calmly said in stark contrast to Jack’s near hysteria. “We have to try escaping again.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jack thought, but it was Justin who said it.

“Justin –”

“No. Gabe got fucking _shot._ Kellin got the shit beat out of him because _we_ fucked up. I watched that creep _rape_ Kellin because _I_ fucked up! And you want to try it again? What, so we can watch him break Jack’s other arm? Or shoot Gabe in the head? Or maybe beat Kellin to death this time?”

“Then we make a last stand,” Nick said, his voice still infuriatingly calm.

“Either win or die trying?” Justin asked, looking like he was actually contemplating the idea.

“Are you guys out of your fucking mind?” Jack asked.

“What other choice do we have? What?” Nick said, finally losing his calm. “Do you just want to wait around for that bastard to pick us off one by one? Do you want to watch Gabe bleed out? Do you want to watch Kellin get beaten to death or die from infection? Do you want to wait around and find out how that bastard intends to kill _you?_ ”

Jack’s shoulders slumped. He looked over to where Kellin and Gabe were huddled on the bed. Kellin’s lithe body curled tightly onto its side, still shivering from fever and shock. Gabe’s face had paled to the color of paper, almost translucent in the fluorescent lighting of their prison. With the way things were going for them right now, Kellin and Gabe wouldn’t survive much longer. “No,” he finally whispered, turning his gaze back on Nick.

“If we do this,” Justin said, “Gabe and Kellin deserve to know first.”

“Of course,” Nick said.

“Because they’re the ones who’ll suffer if we fail.”

Nick’s gaze turned to Kellin and Gabe. He sighed heavily, eyes falling shut, gaze turned towards the ground, before he schooled his features and looked back to Jack and Justin.

“We need a plan,” Nick said.

“Unless that creep restocked the medical cabinet, I don’t have enough supplies to make us more gas masks. And even if I could salvage the ones Gabe and I had, they’re back in our cell,” Justin said.  

“We don’t need them,” Nick said, his expression turning almost wickedly gleeful. “I think I figured out where the gas is coming in from. We’re going to sabotage it and then pretend we’re unconscious when we hear him coming.”

“How do you plan on doing that?” Justin asked.

“We’re gonna blow shit up.”

“Really?” Jack asked.

“Of course not. Here’s what we’re really going to do,” Nick said, but before he could continue Gabe’s voice stopped him.  

“Nick,” Gabe’s voice, with a tinge of panic, said.  

Nick hurried over to the bed, crouching down next to it. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Kellin. He stopped shaking. Is that bad?” Gabe asked, biting his lip.

Nick pressed his fingers against Kellin’s neck, searching for a pulse. The older man tried to mask the worry written on his face, but failed miserably to do so.

“What-what is it?” Justin asked. He had placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder, and now he was twisting the fabric of Jack’s shirt tightly in his hand.

“I …”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter yet! Woo, we're almost there! Anyways, I know Mike and Vic are cousins to Nick in real life, but I'm assuming they're not first cousins due to the fact that according to an interview I saw once they didn't even know they were cousins when they first met, and they haven't know each other their entire lives. However, in this story, because it's my story and I want to, Mike and Vic are first cousins with Nick, and Nick's mom is the sister to Mike and Vic's dad. That's why Nick knows so much about Vic. As you've probably already noticed, I've hinted at their closer than real life relationship in previous chapters. 
> 
> Also, I'm going to put a slight trigger warning for, I don't know how to word this, talk of death, I guess, or talk of killing oneself. I don't want to give too much away, but a couple of the characters are given the option of taking their own life as a last resort to avoid something worse.

**_Day 10_ **

Vic clenched his phone tightly in his hand as he stared down at the blank screen in abject misery. How could he be so stupid? Kellin’s life was literally in his hands and he went and fucked it up.

“What’s wrong? Did it not save to your phone?” Jaime asked, chewing on his fingernail until he realized how dirty it was. He made a face and spit on the ground.

“No. My batteries died. Guys, I’m so, so sorry,” Vic said, still staring at his phone hoping it would spark to life, or he had imagined the entire dead battery thing.

“We can fix that,” Tony said, sliding his backpack off his shoulders. He set in on the ground and dug around in the front pocket.

“How? Are we gonna plug it into the concrete? Cuz I don’t think that actually works,” Vic said, sounding a lot more snippy than he intended.

Tony looked like he was trying very hard not to call Vic stupid as he found what he was looking for in his backpack. “We have the same phone, remember?” he said, pulling out his cellphone. “We can just swap the batteries.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s … ” Vic said, feeling like a complete idiot, but also extremely relieved, as he handed over his phone to Tony when the guitarist gestured for it. “I’m sorry.”

Tony just shrugged off the apology.

“None of us are thinking with a clear head right now,” Mike said, with a small reassuring smile as he stepped up next to Vic. “Don’t stress about it.”

Vic nodded tightly in response and stuffed his shaking hands in his pockets. He had come close to losing it there, and now was not the time to fall apart. Later, after Kellin was safe in his arms and his brother and friends had escaped from this hellhole, he’d let himself fall apart. But for now, he had to keep it together, had to have all his wits about him if they were going to get out of here alive. They simply couldn’t afford for any of them to lose it now.

“I’m okay,” he told his brother. He forced himself to breathe evenly instead of hold his breath as Tony switched the batteries and pressed the ‘ON’ button on his phone. There was no logical reason why it shouldn’t work, but that didn’t stop him from worrying.

They all breathed a sigh of relief when the screen lit up and the battery sign at the top read 100%.

“We are awesome,” Jaime said with a laugh that sounded suspiciously more like a sob. “Seriously, I love you guys so much right now.”

Vic took his phone back from Tony, and with shaky hands managed to pull up the blueprint he’d save. “It’s tiny, but do you think you can use this to get us out of here?” he asked, offering the phone to Jaime.

“Of course,” Jaime said as he took the phone, his face scrunched up in concentration. “It’ll be a pain in the butt, but I’ll make it work.”

“Do we need to walk around to find where we are again?” Mike asked.

“With that dead end we just hit … And the turn there, and the other turn there … ” Jaime mumbled to himself before turning his gaze up briefly towards Mike. “No, I think I know where we are. Let me just …” he said, and started walking forward without finishing.

Tony quickly zipped his backpack and snatched it off the floor before hurrying after him along with Mike and Vic. “Wait for us, jeez,” Tony lightly joked.

Jaime continued to mumble to himself, before stopping at the first turn. “I do know where we are,” Jaime said with a fist pump. “I’d say we’re about equal distance from the cells and where the circuit breaker is written in on this thing. We’ll have to backtrack to get to the circuit breaker, though. What do you guys want to do? Go straight to the cells or go back to the breaker?” he asked, glancing up from the phone.

Vic wanted nothing more than to rush head first to the cells, especially now that they were so, so close. They would only be endangering themselves and risking the lives of his boyfriend and the rest of SWS if they did, though. It would be foolish not to go back, even if they did have to backtrack.

“We need to get to that circuit breaker,” Vic said, though it made his chest ache.

“We’re making the right choice by going back,” his brother said, having read his mind. But knowing that did not make Vic feel any better. Kellin could be just on the other side of this wall being hurt.  

And Vic was just walking away. 

“Lead the way, hermano,” Tony said, gesturing for Jaime to go first.

“It’s this way,” Jaime declared, raising his free hand like a flag. He walked a few feet down the hallway, before spinning on his heels. “And by this way, I mean that way,” he said, heading in the other direction instead.

“Are you sure this time?” Mike asked with a raised eyebrow.  “You seemed quite certain it was the other direction.”

“Shut up,” Jaime said in mock hurt. “This is a very tiny phone, and I have to keep zooming in and zooming out to know where we are. I’d like to see _you_ do it,” he said, sticking his tongue out at Mike.

“You know I’m only kidding with you. You’re the best, Jaime,” Mike joked.

Vic felt a little bit of the pressure ease from his chest. They had a plan, and now they had the means. They could do this. Just a little bit longer and soon he would know what had befallen the love of his, and they would all know their own fate.  

 _Hold on, Kellin,_ he thought. _We’re almost there._

-

With quick steps and renewed determination, Jaime led them swiftly through the maze back to a room that was all too familiar.

“This is the garbage room,” Mike said, scrunching up his nose as the smell of rot hit his nose. “Why did we come back to the garbage room?”

“Don’t blame me. The blueprints say the circuit breaker is in here somewhere,” Jaime said.

“I didn’t see anything when we were first in here,” Vic said, scanning the room. “But I’m not surprised.”

“Do the blueprints specify which wall, or does it just say it’s in this room?” Tony asked.

Jaime squinted at the cellphone as he zoomed in closer on the room. “Actually, it says this wall,” he said pointing to the wall on their left. That side of the room was darker than the rest and held a considerable mound of garbage in front of it.

“I guess we just dive in then,” Mike said.

“Be careful, though,” Vic added. “Some of these bags were pretty sharp.”

They each hesitated before reluctantly wading through the garbage. By the time they reached the wall, they were waist deep in trash.

“What are we even looking for?” Vic asked.

“Some sort of lever, or a secret panel maybe,” Tony suggested, running his fingers along the wall, looking for a crack, or anything really to tell them something hid beneath.

“I think I found it,” Mike said moments later. Throwing trash bags over his shoulder, Mike cleared the area in front of him revealing a metal door that stood from the floor to his mid-thigh.

“Well that was ...” Jaime trailed off.

“Obvious?” Tony suggested.

“Only because we were looking for it,” Vic said, bending over to get a better look at the lock on box. “If you’ve just fallen from the ceiling after being in here for days, it’d be pretty easy to miss.”

“True,” Jaime said as he crouched down with the rest of them to get a better look.

“We still have the crowbar, yeah?” Mike asked, though he was already unzipping Tony’s bag and pulling it out. He placed the end of the crowbar around the joint of the lock, and with a hard yank, easily popped it open.

Vic cautiously pried the metal door off the wall, revealing a hidden compartment. Mike grabbed his arm and pulled him back as the door clattered to the ground. They had been caught unawares one too many times, and his brother wasn’t taking any chances. He felt Jaime grab his other arm as his eyes shot around the room, waiting for something to happen.

After a moment when all remain silent and still, he felt both hands loosen their grips on his arms. Only then did he step forward again, his brother, Jaime, and Tony pressed along his back.

It was more than just a hidden compartment, Vic realized as Tony shone the flashlight through the hole. The space ran along the entire wall in both directions from what they could tell and was approximately two feet deep. It was enough space for a person of average size to comfortably fit in and walk around in. He wondered if there was an entire network of secret tunnels much like this one that their kidnapper traversed in, sneaking around his victims unbeknownst to them, mocking their misery, or if this was the only one.

Aluminum pipes ran along the hidden tunnel disappearing into the darkness in both directions. In front of the pipes sat a fuse box, much like one found in the basement of pretty much every home in America. Each fuse had a label, such as X1Y2, or -X1-Y3, but nothing Vic could make sense of.

“Should I just smash the whole thing?” Mike asked, eyeing the two even rows of fuses.

“You’ll turn the power off to everything down here if you do that. We might need electricity to get out of this place,” Jaime said, frowning. “If we can figure out what these labels mean, we can switch off just what we want.”

“I have no clue what any of that means,” Mike said.

“Yeah, me either,” Jaime said with frown.

“Seriously, did none of you guys take math in high school?” Tony asked, pushing Mike aside a little to get a better look.

“I didn’t even finish high school,” Mike unhelpfully said.

 “They’re coordinates, like on a graph.”

“You lost me,” Jaime said.

Tony sighed in frustration. “Look at the blueprints. It’s on grid paper, right?”

“Yes,” Jaime said slowly, still not seeing the connection.

“Ah, I see,” Vic said, trying to dig what he learned in 9th grade math out from the recesses of his brain. “Each grid on the blueprint corresponds to a coordinate.”

“Yes,” Tony said. “Now assuming the coordinates match up to the blueprints that we have –”

“That’s a big assumption – ” Jaime interrupted.

“—Then we just need to decide in what areas we want to turn off the electricity,” Tony said, ignoring Jaime.

“Everything from here to the cells,” Vic said. “We leave on the electricity in the last area, though, where our escape may be.”

“Let me see the blueprints,” Tony said, taking the phone from Jaime. “That’s -X2-Y2,-X3-Y2, and -X2-Y3. We’ll have to leave the power on in the room labelled as the med room, though. It’s in the same quadrant as the possible exit.”

“Are you sure you’re right?” Jaime asked.

“Only one way to find out. Flipping this fuse should turn off the hallway lights just outside of this room,” Tony said. As soon as he flipped the switch, the lights in the hallway immediately clicked off, dimming their available light and lengthening the shadows. 

“I know you just did that, but that’s still creepy as fuck,” Jaime said. Vic swallowed thickly and nodded in agreement, as Tony flipped several other fuses, hopefully turning off any more traps from here to the exit and making their escape easier.  

“It’s a straight shot to the cells from here,” Jaime said scrolling across the screen of Vic’s phone after taking it back from Tony. “Probably shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

Vic clenched the strap of his messenger bag tightly in his hands, feeling the anxiety flare to life in his gut again. Not trusting his voice, he nodded again.

“Let’s do this,” Mike said, clapping his hands together.

“Wait. Hold on a second, guys,” Tony said, getting on his knees and crawling halfway into the hidden compartment in the wall.

“Tony, what the fuck are you doing?” Jaime hissed. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Remember when I said I thought we were knocked out by gas? What do these look like to you?” Tony asked, shining the light on the pipes that ran behind the circuit breaker.

“I’m going to hazard a guess and say gas lines,” Jaime said.

“What do you think we should do with them?” Mike asked, crouching down and peering in the compartment with Tony.

“Whoever trapped us down here can’t use it against us if they don’t work. But I don’t see a shut-off valve,” Tony said. He bit his lip as he ran the flashlight along the lines again. “You’re not going to like this, but I say we sabotage the gas line and then run like hell before it can knock us out.”

“That sounds like a terrible plan,” Jaime murmured.

“I told you you wouldn’t like it,” Tony said.

“Well, I like it,” Mike said.

“Let’s do it,” Vic agreed. Whatever increased their chances of getting out of here they had to try.

“You guys wait by the hallway,” Mike said. “It’ll only take one of us to break the line, and if I fall unconscious, you three will still be able to drag my ass out of here.”

“Are you sure?” Tony asked, sliding carefully out of the compartment.

“I got this,” Mike insisted.

“Be careful,” Vic said, squeezing his brother’s arm briefly before heading towards the hallway.

Mike wrapped the crowbar around the gas line and pulled, the muscles in his arms rippling as he used all the strength he possessed in his drummer’s arms. When the pipe remained stubbornly still, he placed his foot on the wall for leverage and yanked, throwing his entire weight into it. With a groan of metal, a crack, and a hiss, the pipe burst open, sending Mike sprawling backwards. He tripped over his own feet and hit the ground hard.

“Mike!” Vic said, taking a half step forward only to be stopped by Tony.

“I’m fine,” Mike said, pushing himself to his feet and running towards the hallway. “Let’s get out of here before the gas spreads.”

“This way,” Jaime said. He snatched the flashlight from Tony and ran into the pitch black hallway, only slowing down once they couldn’t hear the hiss of gas escaping anymore. “It’s just down here.”

With nothing but the dim light of the flashlight to guide their steps, they huddled close together as they carefully tread down the hallway. In the darkness, they strained their ears, listening for every scuffle of feet against the ground, every drip of water, every intake of breath. Anything could pop out at them, spring from the blackness like the devil materializing out of hell, and they wouldn’t know until it was too late.

Crawling through the darkness as they were, they still almost missed it: the solid iron door that stretched to the ceiling, exactly as the others they’d passed through before. Vic wondered what horrors this one held secret behind its massive surface.

“This is it,” Jaime said on a shaky exhale.

Vic pushed his way to the front of the group and stopped before the door. He felt Jaime tense next to him and Mike raise the crowbar, ready to strike as Vic pushed open the door.

Collectively, they shuffled forward into the room. Vic jumped when he heard the hiss of gas escaping, Jaime pressing closer against his side. He felt his breaths quicken, and his head lighten, though he didn’t know if it was panic or if it was the same gas that had knocked them out earlier spreading through the room.

He forced himself to take a deep breath, and though his legs felt weak, take another step into the room. Mike, Jaime, and Tony stuck close to him, pressed so close he almost tripped over someone’s foot as he took another step forward.

“Bet you’re glad I turned off the gas now,” Tony murmured a few moments later when no one dropped unconscious, forcing a relieved chuckle out of all of them. With the threat of passing out gone, Tony felt brave enough to separate from their huddle a tiny bit. He let the flashlight roam across the room.

The light glinted off of metal doors, three on each side of the hallway, with a little window with bars cut out near the top of each one of them. Six prison cells in total, exactly as was written on the blueprints. The first two doors were open, and a quick glance with the flashlight revealed they were empty except for the metal chains attached to the wall, a bucket, and sink in the corner. His stomach roiled as he saw the old, dried blood splattered across the floors and walls. They pushed open the next doors only to reveal the same setup and the same emptiness.

“There’s a light coming from further down,” Mike said, his feet already carrying him past the prison cells down the hallway.

“Be careful,” Vic hissed, pushing open the last metal door on the right side of the hallway. The room held a basin overflowing with water that steadily dripped into a puddle on the floor. A plain wooden dining chair sat before the basin with handcuffs attached on each side. He heard a door click shut, and glanced up to see Jaime at the last door on the left side, his face drained of color.

“You don’t want to know what’s in there,” Jaime said.

“It’s … it’s not a body, is it?” Vic asked.

“No. It’s … no,” Jaime said. But he never got a chance to finish.  

“Shoot the bastard!” Vic suddenly heard, the words echoing down the concrete hallway. He spun around quickly towards where his brother had disappeared, and saw light filtering into the hallway from an open door, his brother’s silhouette in the doorway. His blood pounded through his veins as he dashed towards the sound. That was not his brother, or Jaime, or Tony who said that. It sounded an awful lot like …

*

**_Day 10_ **

“I …”

“What? What is it? Is he okay?” Justin asked. He was grasping the fabric of Jack’s shirt so tightly, it ripped beneath his grip.

“I think he’s okay,” Nick said.

Justin sighed in relief and loosened his grip on Jack’s shirt.

“He’s breathing and his heart beat feels steady.  I don’t know why he stopped shaking so much, though.”

“Maybe he’s not in shock anymore?” Jack offered.

“I don’t think it works that way. But I don’t know, maybe,” Nick said. He placed the back of his hand against Kellin’s forehead again, before brushing the fringe from his face.

Kellin moved his head slightly away from Nick’s touch, a whine emitting from the back of his throat.

“I think he’s waking up,” Jack whispered, as Kellin’s eyes fluttered open.

Justin felt himself inching forward along with Jack until they were practically pressed against Nick’s back, leaning over the bed to get a better look.

“Hey, Kells, you with us?” Nick softly asked.

“Hmm,” Kellin groaned. He attempted to roll away from Gabe, only to stop short with a gasp when his back reminded him why that was not a good idea.

“Take it easy,” Nick murmured, gently touching the back of Kellin’s neck, the only part of his back that wasn’t bruised or cut. The way Nick so gently treated Kellin, all of them really, made something painfully clench in Justin’s stomach. Nick was no jerk or asshole by any means, but he wasn’t usually this tender either. He felt himself clenching Jack’s shirt tightly in his hand again.

 “Can one of you go get some water, please?” Nick asked, briefly glancing over his shoulder at him and Jack.

“I’ll do it,” Justin said. Needing to be useful, he grabbed the cup from the untouched tray of food left near the bed that must have been left over from the last time their captor fed them and rushed over to the sink.

His hands shook as he filled the glass with cool water, pain shooting up from the tips of his fingers as he gripped the plastic cup.

But he couldn’t help feeling like he deserved it and brushed the pain away as he hurried back over to the bed.

“Thanks,” Nick said with a tired smile, as Justin kneeled next to the bed.

“I’m gonna help you sit up a little bit so you can drink some water,” Nick said. “I know you don’t want to,” Nick added before Kellin could protest, “but you’re definitely dehydrated, you have a fever, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. This’ll help.”

Nick slid his good arm under Kellin after he hesitantly agreed. “Ready?” Nick asked. Kellin grabbed onto Nick’s arm and nodded. Nick helped him sit up slightly, just enough that he wouldn’t choke. Kellin bit down hard on his lip, knuckles turning white as he gripped Nick’s arm, breathing heavily through the pain.

Justin bowed his head, a frown tugging at his lips. He waited until Kellin loosened his death grip on Nick’s arm before offering the water.

“Small sips,” Nick instructed. Kellin’s hands trembled too much to hold the cup steady, so Justin kept a hand on the bottom of the cup to help. Kellin only managed to drink a little before he shoved the cup away from his face.

“I’m sorry,” Kellin mumbled.

“No, no, that’s okay,” Nick assured, easing Kellin back down on the bed. “You did good. Gabe, why don’t you drink some water, too.”

Gabe’s hands were a bit steadier than Kellin’s. Reluctantly, Justin released the cup.  

“We, uh … ” Nick said, glancing to Justin and Nick. Jack squeezed Nick’s shoulder with his good hand in reassurance. “We were just talking, and well, we uh, we want to try escaping again.”

“Okay,” Gabe said, drawing the word out as he peered warily at Nick over the brim of the cup. Kellin dropped his gaze from Nick and stared at the wall instead.

“I think I know where the gas is coming in from. I think if we plug up the vent we can prevent enough gas from entering the room to stay awake. Then just as before, we pretend to be unconscious and attack when he comes back.”

When neither Kellin nor Gabe said anything, Nick added, “This time it’ll be three against one. We’ll have better odds, and we can strategically place ourselves by the door.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Gabe warily said, his gaze falling on each of them. “So why do you the three of you look so guilty?”

Nick opened his mouth to reply and took a deep breath, before hesitating and shutting his mouth with a click.

“Because if we fail, then you two will most likely pay the price,” Jack said when Nick struggled to find the words.

“Oh. Yeah. But it’s still worth trying if there’s a chance you can succeed,” Gabe said, staring down into the now empty cup. “And if you don’t well … Well, you could leave us something to … to kill ourselves with just in case. There has to be something toxic in that cabinet that’ll do the trick.”

“It won’t come to that,” Nick vehemently reassured. “But of course we will. If that’s what you want.”

Gabe glanced down at Kellin who nodded.

“If you get the chance to escape, you should leave me behind,” Kellin whispered so quietly Justin had to have misheard him. There’s no way he would … He wouldn’t …

“What? Why?” Justin said, feeling the anger burn brightly in his chest. He clenched his fist, trying not to let it consume him.

“I’ll only slow you down,” Kellin quietly admitted.  

“Me, too,” Gabe said, coughing weakly into his fist, and grimacing in pain as if to prove his point.

Before Nick could respond, Justin said what they were all thinking. “No way in Hell are we leaving the two of you here.”

“But you’ll have a better chance of escaping without us,” Kellin argued.

“I don’t care,” Justin huffed. “We are not leaving without you two and that’s final.”

“But –”

“No,” Justin said, cutting off whatever feeble argument Kellin was about to make. He didn’t want to die here, but there was no way in Hell he was going to sacrifice Kellin and Gabe’s lives just to save his own. He’d rather die.

“You heard the man, no,” Jack said.

“We’re getting out of here,” Nick said. “ _All_ of us.”

Neither Kellin nor Gabe looked particularly happy about the decision, but it was final and there was no arguing on it.

“Okay,” Kellin sighed.

“Good. Now that that’s settled we’ll be just on the other side of the room if you need anything,” Nick said a little too quickly. He sprung to his feet and rushed to the other side of the room. Grabbing the autopsy table, Nick pushed it against the wall with the chains looking down at his feet the entire time.

Justin shared a glance with Jack before they both hurried after him.

“What is it?” Jack asked before Justin could, sensing something was off with Nick.

Nick shook his head slightly, his eyes shining with worry. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

Justin felt his heart speed up in fear. All he could do was nod shakily in response. This time, he knew he couldn’t freeze up and fail. They weren’t going to survive his ineptitude a second time.  

“I thought I heard air escaping the last time we were in here from up there,” Nick said, masking his worry. He tried to hop up onto the autopsy table with only one good arm, and failed.

“Let me,” Justin said. He was the only one that could still use both his hands, even though it caused him considerable pain, and he was the smallest. It would be a lot easier for him to climb on top of the table.

With the help of Nick’s good shoulder, and Jack steadying the table, Justin managed to lumber on top.

“Do you see anything?” Nick asked, trying to hide the hopefulness in his voice.

“Yeah, actually,” Justin said, though he didn’t feel the same hope as Nick. “There’s a crack between the top of the wall and the ceiling.”

“Do you think we can plug it up enough to keep us from passing out?” Nick asked.

Justin measured the crack with his arm, noting it went from the tip of his finger to elbow, but smaller in width than the size of his wrist. He stuck his hand in the crack and felt a small ledge, and then nothing but empty space. He let his eyes scan the room, and thought back to all the items he remembered being in the cabinet.

And then his eyes fell on his vest.

“Yeah. With m-my vest,” he managed to choke out, though his throat felt like it was closing up, “and some medical tape.”

Nick scooped the vest up off the floor and handed it to him before heading across the room to grab the tape. Justin couldn’t help staring down at the vest in his hands, though he tried very hard to ignore it. No longer fresh, the blood had dried to a brown, rusty color, though in some places it was still wet and rubbed off onto the bandages around his hands.

There was so much blood; too much of Gabe’s blood staining the material of his vest.

And it was all his fault.

“Here,” Nick said, startling him. He jumped and nearly slid off the side of the table. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Justin mumbled. “Do you … Do you think Vic is actually in the maze, or do you think he was just messing with Kellin?” Justin asked to distract himself from the blood as he fit his vest into the small crack in the concrete. He stuffed as much of the vest into the crack as he could, before tearing off strips of medical tape to cover the vest, both providing an extra barrier to the gas and keeping the vest in place. 

“Honestly? Yes, I do think he’s in the maze,” Nick said, causing Justin to slip again as he spun around to stare at Nick incredulously.

"Really?" Jack asked, looking just as incredulous as Justin.

“It’s not hard to figure out where we disappeared. Even without the text Kellin sent to Vic saying we arrived, this is the last place everyone knows we were headed to. I’ve known Vic his entire life. He’s very loyal and very protective of the ones he loves. He would do anything for them. He loves hard, and he loves with everything he has. I have no doubt in my mind that he’s come after Kellin.”

“So in other words, you’re saying he's clingy,” Jack deadpanned, though his lips turned up to indicate he was only joking. He surprised a chuckle from both Nick and Justin.

“As fuck,” Nick said. “That’s how I knew those two would last, though. Unlike most of the men and women in his previous relationships, Kellin has never minded how clingy Vic is.”

“Because he’s an attention whore,” Justin said. He loved Kellin like a brother, but there was a reason Kellin was a lead singer, the front man of the band, and not a guitarist, or a drummer, or a bassist, and his voice was only part of the reason. “He loves being the center of attention.”

“And that’s why they’re perfect for each other,” Nick said, helping Justin off the table after he finished completely covering the hole he stuffed his vest into twice with medical tape. “Vic was going to propose, you know, after the tour was over.”

“I-I didn’t know that,” Justin said, drawing his hands to his chest.

“That’s why we need to keep him alive,” Nick said, glancing over at the bed. “Long enough to let Vic and Kellin have that moment.”

Justin let his eyes fall shut and took a deep breath. He felt the pressure settle on his shoulders, like someone threw a leaded blanket over them. “I don’t know how well it will hold or how effective it will be,” Justin said, gesturing to the hole, and changing the subject because how could he respond to that?

“It’s better than nothing,” Nick said with a shrug, patting him on the shoulder, before stalking over to the medical cabinet. He started rooting through the supplies, pulling out various medicines and bottles, placing a few to the side next to the sink and the rest back in the cabinet.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked suspiciously.

“Finding Gabe and Kellin something that will, you know,” Nick said, unable to finish the sentence out loud. Both  Jack and Justin knew exactly what he meant, though. “We need something that’ll do the job quickly, so they won’t have to suffer for hours.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Gabe and Kellin just told us they were willing to sacrifice their lives for us, and now you want to give them an easy means to accomplish that?” Jack whispered. “How do you know they won’t just take it right away in hopes of giving us a better chance to escape?”

“We don’t,” Nick said. “But we promised them. And though I’m confident in our chances, I don’t know 100% that we’ll succeed. They deserve the option of a plan B if things go south for us.”

Justin wanted to protest. He wanted to be pissed at Nick for risking Kellin and Gabe’s lives like that.

But then the sounds of their captor’s grunts and groans as he raped Kellin filled his mind, playing over and over like a record stuck on repeat.  Kellin didn’t deserve to go through that again; he deserved the right to take his own life rather than to be beaten and raped to death. 

“He’s right,” he said, though he didn’t want to. “We’ll just have to make them promise not to take it unless necessary, and hope they stick to that promise.”

“We’ll give them this,” Nick said, holding up two small plastic bottles containing an unknown liquid.

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“A really, really strong acid,’” Nick said. He spun around, and stopped, staring at the bed, the two bottles of acid clutched to his chest. He shook away whatever thought stopped him before faltering towards the bed, and kneeling next to it.

Nick let Gabe take one of the vials, but stopped Kellin from taking the other by wrapping his hand around Kellin’s. “You, both of you, you have to promise me right now you won’t take this unless there is no other option. Please,” he begged, “Please, I can’t watch you die. I won’t. You have to give us the chance. If we don’t all make it out of here it’s not worth it.”

Kellin’s eyes threatened tears, but he held them back and nodded in agreement.

“Of course," Gabe said, swallowing thickly. "Of course we won’t. We wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Okay,” Nick said, sniffling a bit as he wiped his sleeve across his nose. “ Okay, good,” he said, composing himself and staggering to his feet. “Now guys, I know our captor has the advantage over us. He’s bigger and stronger than us and not injured. We may have him outnumbered and we have the element of surprise, but we have to make our punches count, each one of them. Every chance you get, you’re gonna want to aim for the crotch, the throat, eyes, nose, and solar plexus. Go for the face, just keeping jabbing at his eyes to disorient him. If he’s protecting his face with his arms, kick him in the nuts, and then go for the eyes. Jack, you don’t have to raise your hand. This isn’t high school. Just ask the question.”

Jack lowered his hand with a smirk. “Yes, teacher Nick. What is the solar plexus?”

“Do you know how to do CPR?” Nick asked.

“Of course not,” Jack said.

Nick rolled his eyes, before pulling his shirt up and pointing to where his ribs met his abdomen in the dead center of his chest. “You’re going to want to drive your fist or elbow or whatever pretty hard into this point right here. That's gonna hurt like a bitch and hopefully drop him. Any more questions?”

“No more questions, teacher Nick,” Jack cheekily responded.  

“When we hear him coming, we should position ourselves near the door, so that we can stop him before he has a chance to reach Kellin and Gabe,” Nick said.

“Sounds good,” Jack said with a thumbs up on his good hand.

“Okay. Okay, we can do this. I believe in us. We’re getting out of here, _all_ of us,” Nick said, throwing a pointed glance at Kellin and Gabe. He narrowed his eyes when his gaze fell on the two of them, and pressed the back of his hand to Kellin’s forehead again, his frown deepening. Kellin’s cheeks looked considerably more flushed than they were just a little while ago, and he had begun to sweat. “How do you feel? Are you too hot or too cold?” Nick asked him.

“I’m okay,” Kellin murmured.

Justin swallowed his bark of laughter. That was a load of bullshit. None of them were okay. They were so far from fine they couldn’t find fine on a fucking map even if was labeled with a giant X.

It wasn’t until everyone stared at him in shock, Jack with his mouth hanging open, that Justin realized he’d said that out loud.

“Um,” Kellin broke the silence, “I’m kind of hot,” he amended.

“Gabe, what about you?” Nick asked.

“I’m kind of cold, but Kellin is like a furnace keeping me warm.”

Nick grabbed the edge of the sheet and ripped a piece of it off. He handed it to Jack. “Can you soak that with cold water?” he asked Jack. “Justin, can you search the medical cabinet for anything that says ‘antibiotic’ on it, like Neosporin or something similar? Kellin, I’m going to take another look at your back, okay?”

“I guess,” Kellin murmured, letting Nick unwrap the bandaging around his back, lifting himself up with Nick’s help just enough to slip the bandaging off completely. He pressed the cool makeshift cloth Jack brought against Kellin’s forehead.

“Did you find anything?” Nick asked, closely inspecting the wounds on Kellin's back.

Justin quickly scanned each item on the shelf, but he didn’t know what half of it was and nothing was clearly labelled as possessing antibiotic properties. He was just about to tell Nick this when he heard a screech of metal against metal and the shuffle of feet. “Shit, do you hear that?” Justin asked, feeling his pulse quicken, and sweat form on his brow.

“He’s coming!” Nick hissed. “Quick, everyone pretend you’ve passed out. You two, Gabe and Kellin,” Nick said, rushing over to the door and throwing himself to the ground next to it. Jack sprawled himself across the floor just past Nick on the other side of the door, and Justin just after him. He let his eyes fall shut and his muscles relax just as he heard another screech of metal and something heavy slide across the floor.

That … that did not sound like the door opening. He heard no _whoosh_ and felt no gust of air indicating the opening of a door. Justin risked opening his eyes just a slit to see the door firmly closed, but their captor was definitely in the room. Justin could see his silhouette near the medical cabinet; the medical cabinet that had been pushed aside, revealing a door and a hidden tunnel behind.

He heard a slight shuffling, the sound coming from Nick or Jack, he didn’t know. But it was enough to alert their captor. His razor sharp gazed snapped over to them, his face twisting into a scowl.

“I knew those fucking Mexicans did something. I knew it!” he roared. In the blink of an eye, he was upon the bed.

With a shout, Justin staggered to his feet, ignoring the stab of pain in both of his hands. Jack and Nick quickly pushed themselves to their feet behind.

“I knew it, I knew it,” the man said. Before any of them could even take a step forward, their captor grabbed Kellin and dragged him from the bed, tearing a hoarse cry from the singer. He used Kellin’s body as a shield, one meaty arm wrapping around Kellin’s chest holding him in place, and the other holding a gun to his head. “Now we’re all going to do exactly as I say,” he said, taking a step towards the tunnel behind the medical cabinet, dragging Kellin with him who weakly struggled in his grip. “You’re all going to line yourselves up on the wall there, and lock yourselves up, or the pretty one gets it.”

Kellin stopped struggling in their captor’s grip as the man took another step towards the cabinet. He saw Kellin fingering something in his hand. Dread settled in his stomach as he realized the object clutched tightly in Kellin's hand was the acid Nick had given him.

 _Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t it,_ played over and over in his head. He saw Nick given an almost imperceptible shake of his head ‘no,’ knowing the same thing was going through his head as Justin’s. Nick would never forgive himself if Kellin took that acid now. Justin would never forgive him either. 

With one hand, Kellin popped the lid off the acid.

“Kellin … ” Justin whispered, his voice breaking.

Kellin met his eyes, his face expressionless. And then he did the last thing Justin expected him to do.

He threw the contents of the bottle in their captors face.

Their captor shrieked in pain, a grating noise that pierced their ears and sounded more like the shriek of a dragon than something human. Both of the man’s hands flew to his face, wiping frantically at the acid burning through his skin.  

Kellin drove his elbow into their capture’s solar plexus as hard as he could manage before his legs gave out on him and Kellin crashed to his knees. 

“You little –” the man gasped out, but stopped short when Kellin drew his fist back and punched the man in the crotch. The man howled in pain. 

“Kellin!” Nick shouted a warning. Kellin rolled out of the way just in time as Nick tackled their captor with enough force to send them both crashing to the ground.

The gun flew from their captor’s hand and skittered across the floor. As Jack dove on top of their captor, helping Nick pin the wildly struggling man to the ground, Justin dove towards the gun, ignoring as best he could the agonizing pain that shot up both of his hands.

He was so, so close to the gun, but the madman, fighting Jack’s and Nick’s hold with an inhumane strength, got a lucky punch in under Jack’s chin. Jack’s head snapped back, his momentum carrying him off the fat bastard until he was lying on his back. Their captor used his free hand to punch Nick in his dislocated shoulder. The guitarist curled in on his injured shoulder instinctually, losing his grip entirely on their captor.

Justin reached for the gun, his fingertips brushing against the cool metal, when a hand wrapped around his ankle and pulled him back. He kicked feverishly with his free leg, getting a lucky kick to their captor’s nose, and crawled towards the gun again when suddenly …

The door opened, and Justin found himself staring up at the long, lanky figure of none other than Mike fucking Fuentes.

“The gun!” Justin wasted no time in shouting, pointing at the weapon still just beyond his reach as a hand wrapped around his ankle again and pulled him back. He didn’t know how or why Mike fucking Fuentes was here, but now was not the time to question it.

 Mike froze for a second, his eyes wide as he took in the scene. “’Mike, the gun!”

To his credit, Mike reacted quickly this time, snatching the gun off the ground.

“Shoot the bastard!” Justin said, kicking at their captor with his free foot again. The hand on his ankle let go, and he crawled away from the man towards the door as Vic, Jaime, and Tony rushed through the door. “Don’t let the door close!” he yelled at Tony, who reacted quickly shoving his body against it to keep it open.

Mike aimed the gun with shaky hands at their captor, but before he could react, the bastard pulled a container from his pocket and smashed it against the ground. A plume of thick black smoke instantly filled the room.

“Where did he go?” somebody asked.

“Does anybody see him?” somebody else asked.

Shouting and chaos ensued, but Justin couldn’t focus on it. He rolled onto his back, his fingers screaming in agony at him, sharp spikes of pain racing down his nerves all the way up to his shoulders. He squeezed his eyes shut, and breathed deeply until the screaming pain quieted to a dull roar.

When he opened his eyes again, the smoke had mostly cleared. His eyes scanned the room for his friends.

Nick and Jack still lay on the ground exactly where Justin had seen them last. Nick was lying on his back, clutching his dislocated shoulder and groaning in pain. Jack was curled on his side, cradling his broken arm to his chest, half hysterical laughter half sobbing escaping from his lips. Jaime and Mike were kneeled next to them, hands hovering over their broken bodies unsure of how to help.

Kellin was leaning against the bed, his entire body slumped against the metal frame and his body shaking uncontrollably again.  Vic kneeled next to him, before peeling off his jacket and draping it over Kellin’s naked shoulders. 

“I’m gonna be sick,” Kellin mumbled, his body trembling violently as he clutched at Vic’s jacket. Vic looked around the room frantically, before grabbing the bedpan and shoving it into Kellin’s hands just in time as he began to retch. Justin turned away, feeling his own nausea rising at the sight and sound of someone else vomiting.

“Gabe?” he heard Nick ask. Justin snapped his head back towards Vic and Kellin, looking just over their heads at the bed.

“Still here,” Gabe weakly said, pumping a shaky fist into the air.

“Thank God,” someone mumbled.

He looked up to see Tony still at the door. Though it was propped open by the autopsy table now, Tony still had one hand on the outside handle, his own eyes scanning the room.

Justin tugged on Tony’s pant leg, until the other man averted his gaze down towards him.

“Don’t let the door close,” Justin feverishly mumbled.

“I won’t, I promise,” Tony said, giving a small smile of understanding. 

Justin nodded his head, and tucked his injured hands against his chest as he forced himself into a sitting position. He looked up to the medical cabinet and saw a metal door shut firmly over the tunnel.

Their captor may have escaped, but …

So had they.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Vic and Kellin's reunion seems a bit rushed to you, don't worry. They'll have their moment in the next chapter. :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Krazykoolkitty214, I swear I didn't initially intend to post this on Kellin's birthday! I totally meant to have this chapter done sooner, but I missed my own deadline and then decided to finish this chapter today. Don't hate me. -_- 
> 
> And I've had a really, terrible, no good, rotten week so far and it's only Monday. So if you guys could recommend me the fluffiest Kellic fics that you know, I would really appreciate it and that would be awesome. On that note, though, I almost made myself cry writing this chapter. It's intense. But I swear my terrible mood had nothing to do with it. It was always meant to end this way. But before you get mad, there will be a sequel to this. 
> 
> As for triggers, there's a little bit of blood and violence in this chapter, but I don't think it's any worse than the others.

Vic reached a door at the end of the hallway at the same time as Tony and Jaime, and shoved his way inside just as a plume of smoke encompassed the entire room.

“Where did he go?” he heard somebody say.

“Does anybody see him?” he thought it was Mike who asked.

The smoke quickly dissipated, but it was the longest moments of Vic’s life. For when it cleared, he’d know for certain what had befallen his partner.

He noticed Justin first, lying on the floor near the door, his bloody, bandaged hands clutched to his chest. Nick and Jack were lying not too far away, chests heaving, and faces scrunched up in pain.

And then he saw him, slumped over, naked from the waist up, and eyes squeezed shut, but still breathing, still alive, still here.

Vic rushed forward and crashed to his knees in front of his boyfriend. Kellin’s face and chest were heavily bruised, back a bloody mess, eyes glossy and dazed. But he was the single greatest sight Vic had seen in weeks.

Kellin raised his eyes to meet his, and started crying, tears running from his eyes. Alarmed, Vic wanted to wrap Kellin up in his arms, to hold him tightly. But with the state his body was in, he knew he would only cause him pain.

“I’m here,” Vic softly whispered to him instead, settling for cupping the sides of Kellin’s face with both his hands.

“You can’t be here. You can’t. He’ll kill you,” Kellin frantically said.

“It’s okay, love. I’m okay. We’re here to rescue you,” Vic said, gently wiping the tears from Kellin’s face. Kellin blinked slowly, trying to process the information.  “You’re safe now,” Vic said, tugging his jacket off and draping it over Kellin’s thin, trembling shoulders. Kellin’s fingers clutched weakly at the fabric as Vic tenderly brushed the hair from his forehead and placed a kiss there; the only part of Kellin that didn’t seem injured.  

“I’m gonna be sick,” Kellin mumbled, tears still pouring from his eyes.

Vic frantically searched around the room, before his eyes settled on the bedpan. He shoved it into Kellin’s hands just as his boyfriend began to retch, bringing up nothing more than bile. He resisted the urge to rub Kellin’s shoulders, instead letting his hand lightly touch his forearm, enough to let Kellin know he was there, but not enough pressure to aggravate the wounds covering his body. “It’s okay, let it out,” he gently whispered to him. “Deep breaths.”

He pried the bedpan from Kellin’s stiff fingers after he was done, and shoved it away from them. Kellin’s eyes met his again, and then despite the pain he must have been in, he launched himself into Vic’s arms.

“Are you really here?” Kellin asked, body trembling and twitching worryingly in his arms.

“I’m really here,” Vic said, wrapping one arm around Kellin’s lower back and one around the back of his head away from most of the cuts. “You’re really safe now.”

“You came for me?” Kellin said, though it almost sounded like a question.

“Of course I did,” Vic said, pressing a kiss into Kellin’s hair. “Of course I did, baby. Always.”

Kellin started crying harder, almost chocking on his own sobs. And there was nothing Vic could do, but hold him and let him cry while his heart slowly crumbled, aching for all the suffering his boyfriend had been put through.  

“Baby, I need to talk to the guys. Why don’t you lie down next to Gabe on the bed?” Vic asked, just barely stopping himself from rubbing Kellin’s back when his cries slowed. Vic wanted to keep Kellin in his arms forever, but they needed to get out of this hell. Now.

 He felt Kellin’s trembling hands latch onto his shirt, as his boyfriend vigorously shook his head no against Vic’s shoulder. “I can’t,” his raspy voice whispered.

“Babe –”

Kellin pulled away, and looked up at Vic with the most pleading, heartbreaking face that made what was left of Vic’s heart shatter in his chest. “Please don’t make me,” he whispered.

 “Okay, okay, just stay here,” he said, gently leaning Kellin against the bed frame again. “I’ll be right back.”

“One, two,” he heard Mike say as he walked back over to the guys. Nick lied on his back on the floor, his arm held firmly by Mike who stood over him, Jaime pinning him to the ground.  

“Wait, wait, wait,” Nick said. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing? I don’t –”

“Too late,” Mike said, pulling Nick’s arm up and twisting it until a loud _pop_ cracked across the room. Vic winced in sympathy as he realized Mike just popped Nick’s shoulder back in place. He’d been through that pain. It wasn’t pleasant.

“Ow, you mother fucking son of a bitch,” Nick grunted, curling in on his injured arm as soon as Mike and Jaime let go, panting with the pain. 

“But you feel better, don’t you?” Mike said with a smirk.

“Don’t be so smug about it, you asshole,” Nick said, taking a couple of deep breaths before he forced himself to sit. “So what’s the plan now? I’m ready to get out of this hell hole,” Nick said, extending his good arm to Mike who hauled him to his feet.

“We think we know where the exit is,” Mike said, steadying Nick on his feet with a pat to the back. “If we’re right, it’s just down the hall. We could be out of here in minutes.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Jack asked, still sitting on the floor, his obviously badly broken arm cradled to his chest. He made no move to get to his feet, and neither did Justin who was sitting with his back against the door now, holding it open. Vic guessed they were in too much pain to even attempt rising.

“Then we could be stuck in here for hours, maybe days until we do find an exit,” Tony said. Jack’s shoulders visibly slumped. Vic wanted to get the hell of this place fast before he lost it. He couldn’t even imagine what it was like for SWS at this point.

“Should we send somebody ahead to check the exit?” Jaime asked.

“No,” Vic immediately responded before anyone else could. “That maniac is still out there. He could attack whoever we send, or there could be more traps, and those of us here would never know what happened. It’s too dangerous. We all go.”

“I agree,” Mike said, placing a hand on Vic’s shoulder. He shrugged it off, ignoring Mike’s hurt look. “Who can still walk?” Mike asked SWS, shaking off the hurt.

“I can if I have to,” Justin grumbled from the floor. Jack nodded along as well.

“Gabe’s in no shape to walk,” Nick said, lowering his voice. “He got shot in the stomach. He’s been bleeding out for a while now, and walking will only speed up the process. If we don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck down here, it’s best we keep him off his feet.”

“Kellin’s not going to be able to walk either,” Vic said, just as quietly as Nick. “I couldn’t even get him to move onto the bed.”

“There’s got to be something to move bodies around here,” Jack said from his spot on the floor beneath them. “I’m guessing he didn’t drag us in here.”

“He’s right,” Justin said, perking up. “He rolled us in here on some sort of trolley thing.” 

“I think I saw something in one of the cells that had wheels and was big enough to fit people,” Jaime said, rushing towards the door.

“Jaime,” Vic yelled, stopping him from running out the door alone. “Take Mike with you. And be careful.”

As the two walked out the door, Nick pulled Tony and Vic into a huddle. “If we don’t know how long we’re going to be down here, we should do some basic first aid on Gabe and Kellin, and pack a few supplies with us. I think we all want to get the fuck out of here, so we’ll just make this quick.”

“I agree,” Vic said.

“Good. Tony, pack some gauze and water in a bag. Vic, come with me,” Nick said. He grabbed what looked like a medical bag off of the counter by the sink and walked back to Gabe and Kellin. He sat on the bed next to Gabe gingerly, avoiding jostling him and Kellin as much as he could. Vic kneeled next to the bed and Kellin, taking his boyfriend’s hand in his own. He felt Kellin’s cold fingers curl around his.

“I’m just going to pull up your shirt,” Nick explained to Gabe, sliding the stained t-shirt up. Not wanting to alarm Gabe, Vic tried not to grimace at the sight, but it was gruesome. He had a thick pad of gauze already pressed to the wound and held in place by gauze wrapped around his waist, but the thing was soaked through with blood already.

“Hey, you said Gabe was shot?” Tony said from the medical cabinet, before Nick could address Gabe’s wound.

“Yeah, why?”

“How did you treat it?” Tony asked.

“We used some gauze to stop the bleeding. Why?” Nick asked again, as Tony came over to them with what looked like a medicine bottle. “What’s that for?”

“It’s silver nitrate. It’ll cauterize the wound, stop the bleeding. It’ll hurt like a bitch, though,” Tony said, giving Gabe an apologetic look.

“It’s up to you, Gabe,” Nick said. 

“You sure this will work?” Gabe asked Tony.

“I once got stabbed 6 times. This is what the paramedics used on me,” Tony explained.

“Let’s do it,” Gabe said, giving a curt nod.

“Bite down on something,” Nick said, waiting until Gabe bit down on the pillow and closed his eyes before pouring the powder over the wound. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” Nick said, his own face a grimace of sympathy, as Gabe’s muffled scream sounded through the room.

 

Gabe’s skin paled even further to the color of a corpse, his breathing shallow. But the bleeding had thankfully trickled to a stop. “Fuck that sucked,” Gabe panted after throwing the pillow roughly away. It hit the opposite wall without a sound. Vic tried to smile reassuringly at him, but wasn’t sure his face even moved from his frown.

“Got it!” Jaime victoriously yelled from the door, stealing Vic’s attention away towards the door, as the bassist bounced in with a trolley, like the kind used to move heavy boxes.

“Awesome. Why don’t you get Gabe onto it,” Nick said, sliding off the bed to kneel next to Kellin with Vic. Nick pressed a hand to Kellin’s forehead , holding his head gently in place when Kellin flinched away from him. “His fever is dangerously high,” he said, eyes scanning the room. “I’m stealing this,” Nick said, taking the discarded sheet off of Gabe as Jaime and Tony helped him slide to his feet, practically carrying him over to the trolley, before settling him on it.

Nick tore the sheet into strips, handing them to Vic. “Go soak these in cold water from the faucet,” he commanded, but Vic’s eyes were glued to an object under the bed.

There, under the bed, was a used, bloody condom. And not just one. Further under the bed near the wall were several others. His wide eyes met Nick’s, whose eyes subconsciously flicked towards Kellin telling Vic everything he needed to know without asking. He swallowed the bile threatening to expel from his throat. Now was not the time, he reminded himself. First, they needed to get the fuck out of here. Everything could be dealt with later.

He sprang to his feet, and rushed towards the faucet, quickly soaking the strips in cold water before returning to Kellin’s side. He handed the strips off to Nick, before kneeling in front of Kellin, cupping his cheek, forcing his partner to look up at him. “I love you,” Vic said. Now may not be the time to deal with everything, but he needed Kellin to know no matter what had happened, he still loved him and always would.

Kellin placed one hand over Vic’s on his cheek, but whatever response he may have had was cut off with a sharp gasp when Nick placed one of the wet strips of fabric on the back of his neck.

“Wipe down his chest,” Nick said, handing him a strip, as he tied another around Kellin’s forehead. Nick peeled Vic’s jacket away slightly from Kellin’s shoulders, frowning as he did so.

Vic shifted to get his first real look at Kellin’s back. His back was covered in cuts from his shoulders all the way down to his hips, and disappearing under the fabric of his jeans. Each cut was long, some wrapping around his sides, some going from his shoulder all the way down to the bottom of his ribs, some even longer than that. Many of the cuts were _deep_ , like he could stick his finger in one and his finger would disappear up to his first knuckle. Vic swallowed thickly and looked away quickly.  “What are you going to do about those?”

“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do anymore,” Nick said, unable to meet Vic’s gaze. “Let’s get him on the trolley,” he quietly said. “We’ll put the rest of these strips in his armpits to try and keep his fever down.”

Vic pressed a quick kiss to Kellin’s forehead again. “This is going to hurt, sweetheart,” he said, sliding under one of Kellin’s arms. He slipped a hand under Kellin’s knees and with Nick’s help stood with Kellin in his arms. Kellin’s hoarse cry of pain brought tears to his eyes. “I’m know, I’m so sorry, baby,” Vic said. He carried him the few feet to the trolley held steady by Jaime. He laid Kellin down as gently as possible next to Gabe, but still heard his boyfriend whimper as his back came in contact with one of the bars that lead to the handle of the trolley.

Vic wasn’t a violent person, and he was never one for revenge. But never had he felt so strong a desire to cause another person’s slow and painful death before as whoever caused the love of his life such pain.

“Who did this?” Vic quietly asked, looking at Nick from the corner of his eye, as he tucked a stray piece of hair behind Kellin’s ear.

Nick paused for a moment, before he sighed heavily, and said, “The hotel manager.”

Vic clenched his fist and nodded.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he jumped, nearly toppling over as he spun around.

“You guys ready to go?” Mike asked, shooting him an apologetic look. 

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Nick said. “We should stick close, and keep Kellin and Gabe in the middle. They’re the most vulnerable and least likely to be able to defend themselves.”

“Maybe we should give them more acid,” Jack said with a snort.

Nick chuckled. “Well, actually, that’s not a bad idea. It worked, didn’t it?”

“Hell yeah,” Jack said, as Vic frowned at the two of them. Nick waved him off as to say he’d tell him about it later.

“I still have mine,” Gabe said, with his own weak chuckle.

“What do you think, Kellin?” Nick asked, but his faint smiled slipped into a frown when he turned his attention on Kellin. “Kellin,” Nick sharply said and knelt next to the injured singer. “Stay with us, Kells.”

“’M awake,” Kellin mumbled, though he didn’t open his eyes.

Vic felt the urgency flare white hot in his chest. “We should get going,” he said.  

Tony and Jaime led the way down the darkened hallway, Jack and Justin sandwiched between them.  Vic pushed the trolley, keeping one hand on the handle and the other on Kellin, needing to touch his boyfriend to assure himself he was really here. Mike and Nick brought up the rear, walking so close to Vic's back he could feel their body heat seeping through his thin t-shirt.

“This is it,” Jaime said, at the end of the short hallway, coming to a stop in front of a plain wooden door. He twisted the knob and pushed the door open.

Vic expected another trap, more plain barren concrete walls that held a hidden horror.

Instead, they found a sparsely decorated bedroom. There was a queen sized bed shoved into the corner with plain white sheets and plain white pillows. Next to the bed sat a bedside table with an old style wind-up alarm clock and a single lamp. On the opposite wall of the bed, there was a desk with several books scattered across the top, and a simple dresser stained a dark brown with nothing on it. In the middle of the dresser and the desk was a metal gate that went from floor to ceiling, covering a small recess in the wall.

“He sleeps down here?” he heard Nick whisper in horror.

“That’s creepy as fuck,” Gabe mumbled, and Vic couldn’t agree more.

“Oh  my God, do you guys know what this is?” Jaime cheered, rushing into the room towards the metal gate. He jumped up and down like a dog waiting for its food. “I’m so happy I could cry,” Jaime said, throwing his arms wide and hugging the metal gate.

“What are you doing?” Tony said.

“It’s an elevator,” Jaime said. He turned around dramatically. “Elevators go up, don’t they? This has to be an exit.”

“We’ll find out,” Jack murmured. He didn’t look nearly as optimistic as Jaime. Vic couldn’t blame him. Though he felt cautiously optimistic, he didn’t want to get his hopes up too much only to have them crushed by this twisted maze of horrors once again.

Jaime shoved the gate to the side. He took the first cautious step inside. “It is an elevator,” he said. Vic felt his shoulders relax slightly in relief. He saw Justin dabbing at his eyes, heard a sob of relief from Gabe, and a sigh from Nick.

Jack staggered under the relief, resting his weight against the wall. “You’re serious?” he shakily asked.

“And it goes up,” Jaime said. “I think we can fit everyone in one trip.”

“The trolley’s not going to fit through the door,” Tony said. “We’ll have to carry Gabe and Kellin in.”

Vic felt a hand touch his shoulder and he jumped again. "Jesus, Mike." 

“Sorry,” his brother said, apologetically. “I’ll keep watch at the door.”

“Good idea,” Vic said, as his brother took post at the door, the gun held firmly in his hands. He didn’t even know if Mike knew how to use the thing, though.

“You three in first,” Jaime said, herding Nick, Justin, and Jack into the elevator. They protested weakly, but allowed Jaime to manhandle them into the small space. Vic brought the trolley as close as possible to the elevator so they wouldn’t have to carry Gabe and Kellin far. “Come on, Gabe,  up you go,” Jaime said, slipping under one of Gabe’s arms, Tony doing the same on the other side. Vic kept the trolley steady, the fingers of his free hand running soothingly through the strands of Kellin’s hair.

“It’s almost over,” he whispered to Kellin as Tony and Jaime settled Gabe down on the floor of the elevator. “You’re almost free.”

A muffled shout from the door had Vic spinning around quickly, his heart beating faster than a rocket.

“Mike?” he asked, not seeing his brother in the doorway to the bedroom. “Mike!?!”

For a moment, there was nothing but silence, heart breaking, earth shattering silence.

And then his brother walked through the door, a knife at his throat, and the gun firmly held in the hands of the hotel manager.

“I’m sorry,” his brother choked out, before the man pressed the knife to Mike's throat harder, digging in hard enough to make him bleed.

“Everybody out of the elevator now!” the man roared, shaking Mike’s body vigorously. Jaime and Tony made to step forward out of the elevator, but Vic shoved the trolley and his body in front of the door, stopping them.

“Vic, what are you doing?” Jaime hissed.

Vic clenched his fist until his fingernails dug into his palm.

_Could he do it?_

The manager fired the gun. Vic flinched, covering Kellin’s body as best he could with his own. But it was only warning shot, fired straight into the ceiling.

“Out of the elevator now!”

“Vic,” Tony said sharply, when Vic did not move.  

_Could he really sacrifice everybody’s lives for Kellin’s and Mike’s?_

Before Vic could make a decision, though, Kellin did the one thing he couldn’t, the one thing he had to do:

He threw the gate closed in Tony and Jaime’s face, before lurching forward and slapping his palm over the button to operate the elevator.

“No!” he heard someone shout, fists pounding against the cage. Jaime and Tony frantically tried to stop the elevator. But it was too late to stop it, as the elevator lifted up, up, up, carrying his friends to freedom.

The manager screamed in rage, an inhumane, guttural sound like the wail of a fog horn. He aimed the gun at Vic, his finger on the trigger.

He felt Kellin reach up and grab his hand. He tightened his grip around his boyfriend’s cold fingers as he stepped in front of him, shielding Kellin’s body, waiting for a bullet.

But just as the man pulled the trigger, his brother swung both his arms above his head and crashed them down onto the man’s forearm, throwing his entire weight into it, and sending them both off balance, the knife slicing across his cheek. 

The shot went wild, the bullet slamming into the wall instead as the gun tumbled from the manager’s hand. Mike kicked the gun, and it slid across the floor, disappearing under the bed. He swung his arms wildly, a lucky blow catching their captor in the nose. But it wasn’t enough to free him from the grip of their captor. With a roar of rage, the manager shoved his brother hard enough to bash his brother’s face into the concrete wall. Mike slumped to the ground unconscious, blood running from a scrape on his temple. But the steady rise of his chest told Vic his brother still lived, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

The reprieve was but for a moment as their captor turned his rage on him.

Being of Mexican descent in a country that ironically hated immigrants meant Vic had occasionally fallen victim to both severe bullying and quite a few racial slurs simply because of where his father had been born. He’d been pushed around the hallways as a kid, but the bullying had never been violent, and it never even crossed his mind to worry about something like. At least, not until one of his distant cousins got the shit beat out of him in a WalMart parking lot. Then at the tender of age of 12, Vic started to realized that he might be gay. His parents had been supportive when he told them, but he had heard his mother crying that night, afraid for his safety. He had a target on his back, one she couldn’t protect him from.

He was a short, skinny person that knew next to nothing about defending himself.

In the summer of his 13th year, when the bullying really started to pick up at school, Vic ended up spilling his guts to Nick about his fears of getting beat up because of the color of his skin and his sexuality. His cousin took it upon himself to teach Vic how to fight. Though a whole hell of lot stockier in build than Vic, Nick was even shorter than him. Nick taught him how to fight dirty, how to use his short stature to his advantage, and how to create an opening so he could get free and run to safety.

He couldn’t run away now. though. And his safety wasn’t the only thing he was protecting. He couldn’t let this demon, this monster get anywhere near his boyfriend or brother again. 

Vic had no advantages in this fight, no skill, no confidence in his ability to win, and a whole lot more to lose.

But he met him half way anyways.

Vic swiped the lamp off the bedside table, and heaved it side-armed at the advancing menace. The man tossed it aside like it was paper, and the lamp shattered against the wall near his brother. Defense was his only real option, and he waited for the man to make the first move.  He ducked under the fist thrown at his face, and slid under the man’s arm, spinning as he did so to quickly jab the man in the kidneys.

The man grunted in pain. “It’s going to take a lot more than that to take me down, boy,” he said, turning on his feet to swing at Vic again. But Vic was quicker, and had already moved out of range of his fists.

They realized at the same moment, however, that Vic was no longer between the monster and Kellin. The man lumbered towards his boyfriend. Desperately, Vic slid to his knees, ducking under the man and popping up between him and Kellin. The man blocked Vic’s kick to his crotch, but wasn’t quick enough to block the jab to his eyes. The man swung his fists blindly. Vic tripped over the trolley as he tried to back away, causing him to lose his footing. One of the man’s fists caught him in the shoulder, and though it wasn’t full force, it was enough to knock him into the wall leaving enough of an opening for the man to trap him against the wall.

He felt a hand wrap around his throat, his oxygen cut off with a gasp. Vic dug his fingernails in the forearm wrapped around his throat.  

The haunting laugh of his captor sent chills down his spine. “I can’t feel pain,” he mocked, pulling Vic away from the wall before slamming him back into it.

His lungs burned and he felt dizzy and light headed as the hand tightened its grip, crushing his wind pipe. Vic shifted his weight, trying to break free when he felt the canister in his back pocket drag against the wall.

The pepper spray! He forgot he had snatched it off the ground days ago and stuffed it in his pocket.

He reached a hand into his pocket, and gripped the small weapon tightly . Vic turned his head away as best he could before aiming the canister in his captor’s face, closing his eyes, and pressing the lever down just as his vision began to darken.

With a hiss and spray of foam, his captor roar in pain. The hand around his neck withdrew, as the man frantically wiped at his face. Unable to hold himself up, Vic crashed to his knees. He gasped for breath, dragging air into his burning lungs as his vision wavered.

Before he could recover, something heavy crashed into his body, sending him sprawling across the floor. The heavy body of the hotel manager straddled him, pinning his body to the ground. A knife glinted in the fluorescent lighting as the monster raised the knife over his head with both hands wrapped around the hilt, and stabbed it down.

Vic twisted his body just enough that the knife plunged into his arm just below his shoulder instead of his neck. Pain shot through his arm, setting his nerves on fire from the tips of his fingers to his shoulder. He could feel his warm blood rushing down his skin and pooling beneath him.

The man grabbed the hilt of the knife, and tore it from his arm, ready stab him again and again. Just as Vic thought it was over, just as he thought he had failed to save his brother and his boyfriend, just as he thought the love of his would watch him die and there was nothing he could do, a shot rang out through the room.

The man’s face above him twisted from gleeful malice to surprise, the knife dropping from his hands, as blood blossomed across his chest.

They both turned their heads towards the direction the shot came from. There, next to the bed lay Kellin. He had crawled his way from the trolley, the gun now held unsteadily in his shaky hands.

The man staggered to his feet leaving Vic behind and all but forgotten. Despite the blood running from his chest, the man stumbled towards his boyfriend. Kellin pulled the trigger again, but the gun jammed. He saw fear flash across Kellin’s face, but his boyfriend schooled his features, as he forced himself to a sitting position. Kellin closed his eyes, his expression almost peaceful as his torturer descended upon him.

Vic’s vision wavered, darkness creeping at the edges. His lungs burned and his limbs felt weak and uncoordinated as he pushed himself to his feet.

But he could not, _would_ not, let this man harm the love of his life again.

Vic grabbed the knife from the ground, and with a war cry, he staggered and jumped on the manager’s back. Wrapping his legs around the monster’s waist, he plunged the knife into his neck, and twisted until he hit an artery, blood spurting against the walls and coating his hands.

Finally, the monster stopped as Vic slipped from his back and threw himself to the ground in front of Kellin. For a moment, the man did nothing but stand there. For a moment, Vic thought it still wasn’t over.

And then the man fell to his knees, his face twisted in surprise and shocked horror, before he crashed face first to the ground, eyes wide open and unseeing. He took one final breath, and then fell completely still at last.

He felt Kellin reach for him, and Vic surged forward, cupping the sides of Kellin’s face with both hands as he pressed their foreheads together. Their heavy breaths filled the silence.

“I … I love you, too,” Kellin whispered, tears pouring from both their eyes, as the elevator gate slammed open and the room filled with noise and chaos once more.

*

All he felt was pain. Every nerve, every inch of his skin felt like fire burning him slowly. Every breath was agony, every movement a torrent of pain cascading across his body. It became harder and harder to breathe, harder to keep his eyes open. Harder to live.

But Vic was fighting a monster on his own for their lives, for _Kellin,_ and he would not, could not, just let him die.

Kellin could not rise, could barely lift his weight on his arms. So he did the one thing he had to: rolled off the trolley to the cold, unforgiving ground.

He landed on his side, and pain so sharp it stole his breath away raced along every nerve of his body.

His vision threatened to go dark, and his body threatened to give out on him.

But he crawled his way forward, inch by agonizing inch, dragging his broken, abused body across the room to where he saw Mike kick the gun.

He felt his eyes water in relief as he came upon the bed. The pain in his back flared to life, like someone was pressing red hot coals of a dying fire to his skin, as he reached for the gun. His fingers brushed against cool metal and he grasped at the weapon, sliding it into his hands.

He’d never shot a gun before, never even held one in his hands. It felt heavier than expected. It felt wrong. And for a moment, despite everything the monster before him had put him through, Kellin questioned whether or not he could really take another man’s life, even if that man would not hesitate to take Kellin’s.

But then he saw the blood running down Vic’s arm, the knife poised to strike again, and without a second thought, Kellin pulled the trigger.

By some miracle, though he could barely see past the haze in his eyes, his aim held true, the bullet striking its target.

The man jerked as the bullet hit, the knife clattering from his hands. And then the man rose to his feet and staggered towards him.

He pulled the trigger again, and the gun jammed. Kellin bitterly laughed, a sob catching in his throat.

He was going to die now. He could see it in the other man’s eyes as he advanced. There was no escape for him. 

But he would not allow himself to die lying down. Though every inch of his body protested, he forced himself to a sitting position, and closed his eyes, waiting for death to find him. Waiting for death to take away his pain.

He heard a cry from Vic unlike anything he had ever heard before, like the desperate howl of a hungry wolf on its last hunt.

He saw Vic plunge the knife into his tormentor’s neck, saw the man fall to his knees. Saw him take his last breath.

His heart beat against his ribs, and he gasped as his lungs refused to fill completely. He reached for Vic, needing to feel his skin against his own in that moment. Vic surged forward, cupping the sides of his face, and pressed their foreheads together, their tears mingling together.

“I … I love you, too,” he forced out, though it didn’t feel like he had enough air to breathe.  He needed Vic to know, and he needed to say it in case he never got another chance.

He felt himself drift, his eyes shutting against his will. He felt his body being lifted, a hand clasped tightly in his own. Forcing his eyes open, he looked up at the bleary figure of his boyfriend hovering worriedly over him.

Darkness stalked him like a black panther its prey.

“Stay with me, Kells,” Vic said, the hand in his tightening its grip.

He tried to squeeze Vic’s hand back, tried to say ‘I’m still here.’ But his body felt paralyzed, the breath refusing to escape his lips.

The darkness sunk in its claws, tearing at him, dragging him under. He eyes fell shut again.

“You have to stay with me,” he heard Vic say, his tears hitting Kellin's hot skin. “Because we’re going to get married.  I was going to ask you to marry me,” Vic’s broken voice said. Kellin wished more than anything that he could respond. That he could say something, _anything_ in return.

 _I would have said yes in a heartbeat,_ he thought.

“This is the ring I’m going to give you,” Vic said. No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t open his eyes to see it, though there was nothing he wanted more. “You have to hold on so I can give it to you. Please, Kellin, please don’t leave me.”

 _I’m not going anywhere,_ he thought. _I don’t want to leave you._

But the darkness pulled him under, further and further away from Vic.

“Kellin?”

His grip on reality slipped, and he fell into a black abyss, clinging to the edge.

“Kellin? Baby, don’t ...”

He struggled to stay on the edge, fought with everything left in him.

But it wasn’t enough.

The abyss swallowed him whole, and he drifted away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And you guys thought is over. Seriously, though, I swear i wouldn't just end it ambiguously like that and with so many unresolved issues. So for the record, no Kellin is not dead, and yes there will be a sequel, and yes I am very sorry for making you think it was over, when it's not. Though I did rescue all of them, so I get points for that, yes?


End file.
